By popular demand, we are happy to announce that Prof. Walter Zaryckyj is coming back to give us an update talk on the Ukraine / Russia crisis. This is a follow-up talk after his riveting March 10 talk - Why Ukraine Matters and Should be Actively Secured from Harm.

Prof. Zaryckyj, a fellow alumnus, is the Executive Director of the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations.

Some of the global consequences from the March 10 talk Prof. Zaryckyj may revisit include:

(1) Allowing Russia to further truncate or possibly dismember Ukraine (a founding member of the UN) would do to the United Nations what the slow motion dismantlement of Czechoslovakia ultimately did to the League of Nations in 1938-39; the rubble would most likely not bounce this time.

(2) Allowing Russia to make further inroads into Ukraine would remind all newly minted or aspiring nuclear powers (N. Korea, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia) to avoid non-proliferation accords (such as the Budapest Memorandum) like the plague.

(3) When Ukraine controlled Crimea, the peninsula was a nuclear weapon free zone (as per the mentioned Budapest Memorandum); with Russia exercising 'de facto' sovereignty over Crimea (and with a probable grab of the water rich nearby Kherson province set to reinforce that fact), the territory could soon harbor nuclear weapons (or be prepared to become such a harbor).

(4) The capture of large portions of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast would threaten to turn a body of water with three NATO states (Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey) and two aspiring NATO States (Georgia & Ukraine) on its shores into a Russian lake (ozero).

(5) Turning the Black Sea into a Russian ozero (looking south) would force a long-time (if not always well behaved) NATO ally like Turkey to seek its own accommodation with Russia.

(6) Given that Turkey might finally give Russia free reign through the Bosphorus (certainly the end of the Truman Doctrine benefits and possibly post Montreux in texture), the Eastern Mediterranean (with allies Israel and Jordan) would be exposed to new RU adventures.

(7) With an estimated 5-7 million Ukrainians likely on the run and major transport facilities in ruins, Ukraine would automatically stop being a major global supplier of foodstuffs. As Ukrainian Minister of Defense Reznikov has pointed out, Ukraine's disappearance from the worldwide food marketplace would not only disrupt the global food supply chain, it could trigger famine in the poorer areas of the world.

We will have a 30 - 45 minutes Q&A session after the talk and hope to cover questions we did not have enough time to cover in the last talk.

Talk Agenda

• 7:00-7:10 Start. Welcoming Statements, Ground Rules, Updates, Introductions.
• 7:10-7:50 Talk
• 7:50-8:30 Q&A, Thanks, Closing Statements, End.

About Walter Zaryckyj

Walter Zaryckyj is Executive Director of the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations. The Center provides “informational platforms” or venues for senior-level representatives of the political, economic, security, diplomatic and cultural/academic establishments of the United States and Ukraine to exchange views on a wide range of issues of mutual interest, and to showcase what has been referred to as a “burgeoning relationship of notable geopolitical import” between the two nations.

Dr. Zaryckyj completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Columbia University; he taught political science at NYU for nearly three decades before moving on in recent years to do postdoctoral research work on Eastern Europe.