"Putin's goal is to suffocate the soverignity of Ukraine," said UC Berkeley political scientist George Breslauer in a conversation hosted by OLLI @Berkeley on February 28. Breslauer was joined by economics professor Yuriy Gorodnichenko in a sober and deeply substantive discussion about Putin's invasion of Ukraine and what should be done about it.
“This could have been avoided,” said Breslauer, professor emeritus of political science and author of the 2021 book, The Rise and Demise of World Communism. “Putin has now shown his worst instincts. He has shown his dark side, taking no prisoners in this attack on Ukraine. I just hope that he is retrievable toward a diplomatic compromise that calls for no Ukraine in NATO and no ceding to the Russian sphere of influence, formal neutralization. But we’ll see if that is even possible in light of what’s going on now.”
The talk is viewable on YouTube (above) or accessible as a podcast (below) on Berkeley Talks, which also provided a transcript.