Frederica Freyberg:

This week marked the celebration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991. And came on the same day that marked six months since Russia invaded Ukraine. In Green Bay, dozens gathered to show support and solidarity. The U.S. has sent more than $10 billion of military aid to Ukraine with billions more to come. But the human toll in death and displacement and the ravaging of Ukraine’s landscape beg the question, when and how will it end? Tonight, we check in with Professor Andrey Ivanov, whose specialty is Russia and the Soviet Union at UW-Platteville. He is also Ukrainian. His family made harrowing escapes to safety when war broke out. Professor joins us now and thanks very much for being here.

Andrey Ivanov:

Thank you very much for hosting me.

Frederica Freyberg:

First, I do want to ask, how is your family doing?

Andrey Ivanov:

They are fine. Some of them are here and others are still waiting to come from Germany. So I’m awaiting their arrival.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is it like for civilians still inside Ukraine at this time?

Andrey Ivanov:

It is very difficult. The economic part is very difficult, the logistic part, the transportation part. The panic of February and March has largely subsided in parts of western Ukraine and parts of northern Ukraine, but in the south and in the east, the situation has worsened considerably with a lot of destruction and shelling and active military campaign that’s still going on. So we are talking about essentially now the situation inside Ukraine, you have kind of two Ukraines. You have Ukraine that has largely been sort of not affected by the destruction. It’s still affected by the missiles, but then the east and in the south, you have people losing their homes, people losing their loved ones, people losing their lives and massive evacuations are still continuing from the east and the south as we speak right now.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’ve read that Russia now occupies 20% of Ukraine. I think when Russia first invaded observers thought they’d roll in and capture Ukraine in full. What did you think at the time?

Andrey Ivanov:

Well, when the — when the invasion happened, I was — I couldn’t believe what was going on, frankly. I was — my family was affected and they were in the midst of the area that suffered bombardment and they had to escape. So for me, this was something that affected me personally, and I expected Ukraine to put up very fierce resistance. Either through kind of insurgency guerilla campaign if Russians were to take parts of the territory or active war efforts, and it’s been a combination of both, and I’m very glad that the resistance campaign has been successful in many parts of Ukraine but I’m also very disheartened that the Russians were able to make so much progress in other parts of Ukraine in the south and the east in particular.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you think this will progress?

Andrey Ivanov:

I don’t have a crystal ball. I’m not a Nostradamus. It’s very hard to tell. The long-term scenario with western support, with western and especially American help looks very good for Ukraine. And it looks very bad for Russia. The short-term scenario, talking about the next several months with winter coming and the gas and oil crisis and energy crisis, the short-term scenario looks very difficult for Ukraine, and sort of favors Russia. And so we have a long-term and a short-term scenario. The question is can the west remain steady in its help to Ukrainian fight for independence, and for how long. And that will really decide the outcome of the war.

Frederica Freyberg:

More broadly, why does Vladimir Putin want Ukraine when it so clearly does not want him?

Andrey Ivanov:

Well, it’s kind of a post imperial syndrome, you know. Empires collapse and then you have new entities emerge. I’m a historian, so I talk like this. So you know, there are a lot of people in Russia who support Putin’s neo imperial ambitions. They want the empire back. Whether this is the old Soviet Union or this is the Russian empire, but this is something that has happened before in world history, with Germany after World War I, or Hungary after World War I and so on. And so that is something — that is one of the reasoning that I think that, you know, Putin wants to recreate an empire or imperial space that was lost after 1991, and some may argue lost after 1917.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, reportedly at this point in the destruction, it will cost $200 billion to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure and housing. What is it like to see the devastation of your homeland and its people?

Andrey Ivanov:

It’s very — very disheartening. It’s very difficult to see those pictures. I’ve seen pictures of house of my sister that received a shell in one of the areas of that apartment house, and so when I see that, of course this is something that I, you know, that relates personally and it’s, you know, a mixture of grief and anger and questions and so on. But I — I think that Ukraine, which has endured destruction during World War I and World War II will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes and from the rubble of this horrible assault, this horrible invasion. And so yes, it will be, you know, the destruction is there and it will take a while to rebuild Ukraine, but you know, somebody who has come from there and you know, hearing stories of my parents and grandparents and great grandparents who endured World War II, yes, destruction is horrible but it is possible to rebuild after destruction.

Frederica Freyberg:

Professor Ivanov, thank you. Thank you very much for joining us.

Andrey Ivanov:

Yeah, thank you.