Today marks the fourth anniversary of the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Over the past four years, we have often spoken about resilience. But resilience is not only endurance — it is also the ability to adapt and act strategically.
On this anniversary, we want to highlight an important strategic initiative launched by the School for Policy Analysis NaUKMA and the Kyiv-Mohyla International Relations Department — the Russian studies programme.
This project, initiated by Maksym Yakovlyev and Anton Suslov, aims to study Russia as an enemy in order to counter it effectively.
For many years, both in Ukraine and internationally, the study of Russia was limited to the romanticisation of the “mysterious Russian soul” and the “great Russian culture”. In Ukrainian political science, Russia had rarely been studied systematically — especially as a threat.
This paradigm must change. The Kyiv-Mohyla Russian studies programme does exactly that: it critically analyses contemporary Russian political dynamics in order to prepare experts capable of effectively countering the aggressor.
“To defeat the enemy, you need to understand how they think and act,” — Kyrylo Budanov, on the Russian studies programme.