 Hello and welcome to this conversation with our partners at Denver University and international security program at New America. I'm Candice Rondo I'm the director of the future frontlines program at New America and also I am leading a initiative called planetary politics which is part of this conversation. And where we are today is not where we are seven were seven months ago. The planet was looking a little bit different the world was looking a little bit different. A lot has happened since the start of this year, and most important of course, among other things is the war in Ukraine. And what we know is that that war has challenged our institutions challenge our sense of peace of stability. And most importantly for many countries around the world that rely on Ukraine and Russia, to some extent for for food supplies for agricultural supplies in particular. It has been an incredibly disruptive time in their lives and in the economy and social structure of their countries. In fact, if you believe the world food programs figures, some 36 countries now are deep in talk when it comes to food security, almost 60% of that those 36 countries has a population living below the poverty line and they are unable to afford food in large part, because the war in Ukraine has decimated the country's ability to produce incredibly important goods like wheat, sunflower oil, and so forth. And that food crisis is a reminder of how much we are challenged today by our interconnectedness by our planetary existential problem of this shared space. In our warming planet, in our planet that is also stressed by disease and conflict. All of this tells us that we have a big problem. And that when something happens in one part of the world, it often affects another part of the world, most Americans and Europeans fully understand this now. Because every day, when they go to the store, they find that, you know, their price of bread and milk and eggs is, you know, 10% higher in some cases 12% higher than it was just a few months ago. They experience shock, of course, and we know that winter is coming in Europe in particular that this challenge that Ukraine has presented the world, exposes the many, many flaws with a mismatch between our institutions, and the problems that we face today and that's sort of what planetary politics is all about. This is an initiative that we're rolling out here with this first kickoff event and conversation with our colleague Deborah Avant and her colleagues on the panel. First, let me also introduce Deborah. Deborah Avant really often doesn't need much introduction introduction she's been around for a long time, and she's been very influential in the realm of how we think about civilian and military relations. She's written extensively on that subject, and has led many conversations on the future of international security at Denver University, where she is the CEO, CEO chow king chair for international security and diplomacy at the school for international studies. She has today with her an amazing panel of experts from all over the world, and I will let her introduce them now. Thank you very much, Candice. And I'm super happy to be here as part of sort of my new affiliation with New America on the planetary politics project. And let me just start by, by noting the obvious that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has captured the world's attention. Putin to launch such an overt invasion, and even fewer expected Ukraine to respond with such resolve. When offered an airlift to safety at the beginning of the conflict, press Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky responded, the fight is here. I need anti tank ammo, not a ride. While society responded with an outpouring of support companies pulled operations out of Russia protesters marched in solidarity yellow and blue flags flew everywhere, and even some of my academic friends flew to Poland to give rides to Ukrainian refugees. Western governments followed suit with far reaching economic sanctions and have committed 1.55 billion in military aid. Over the last few weeks that aid has looked well spent as Ukraine Ukrainian counter offensive has seized back territory from Russia in the East. Nonetheless, as Candice mentioned the war has caused massive destruction and loss of life in Ukraine. It's also generated food and energy crises. It's deepened supply chain disruptions in the global economy, and it's generated questions about the future of global order and global security. So, I'm really happy to discuss these questions to have such a wealth of expertise on this panel. So, first we'll have Volodymyr Dubovic, who is an associate professor at the Department of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Studies at Odessa, Meknikov National University in Ukraine. He's co-author of Ukraine and European Security and has published numerous articles on US-Ukraine relations, regional and international security, and Ukraine's foreign policy. Next we have Azada Moaveni. She's an academic writer who specializes in gender and conflict. She's an associate professor at NYU and an advisor to the International Crisis Group. Her latest book is Guest House for Young Widows Among the Women of ISIS, and she recently wrote about Ukrainian women's experiences of wartime displacement for the London Review of Books. Luis Rodriguez is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He studies how the global south has been able to contest and shape norms that govern the use of force, and has written about the reaction among Latin American countries to the war in Ukraine. Last but not least is Alexander Cooley, the Claire Tau Professor of Political Science and Vice Provost at Barnard College, Columbia University. His research focuses on the politics of sovereignty, governance and international order with a focus on post-Soviet states. His books include great games, local rules, the new great power contest in Central Asia, and most recently exit from hegemony, the unraveling of the American global order co-authored with Dan Nexon. So let me start in the order I introduced with Volodymyr. Can you briefly describe the impact of the war on Ukrainian politics and society, as well as its relations with others, as you see it from inside Ukraine? Sure. Thank you, Deborah. Thank you for having me in this event, the New America. And also to the colleagues, because of course for us, the Ukrainian scholars these days, it's an invaluable experience every time we speak to the audience to share what we go through, what we live through, and also we use this as an opportunity to thank everyone for support, because of course it's all pouring of enormous scale of support for Ukraine in recent months and we really appreciate this. And frankly, it would be much more difficult for us to withstand the whole invasion without that support, be it financial assistance, weapons supply, or even the moral support coming from outside of Ukraine. So right now I'm here in the western Ukraine, being an internally displaced person. My hometown of Odessa hasn't been subjected to such an intensive shelling as say, Mariupol, or Kharkiv, or Mikulayev, or some other places in Ukraine, but still it wasn't in a dangerous kind of situation there early on in the war. Of course, so I moved out and that's where I am I'm doing my classes online now from from a distance and my colleagues and my students, they all scattered around the place, I mean Ukraine outside of Ukraine so that's a reality of our lives so nothing is normal anymore for millions and millions of us as you know, in terms of our security situation. I think it's very volatile still the aggression is very much ongoing, even though we have been seeing some sides of Russia been meeting it's what the scholars military scholars say, call it a culminating moment and actually I've been passed that culminating moment they couldn't really advance anymore in anywhere in Ukraine, frankly, but they still possess a lot of firepower and missiles and and financial sources as well for this war to go on in Ukraine we have seen an enormous scale of resilience by the people here in the country. And I'm saying it probably as Ukrainian myself I was surprised to a certain extent myself, with how much of that resilience we actually saw. And we see it bottom up or, you know, other way around, you see it in the president who you mentioned, decided to stay in Kiev in dark hours when Russian troops were getting close, and you see it also in everyone else you see it in the university professors you see it in, you know, firefighters you see it in emergency workers, definitely in the military but everyone everyone basically. I'm kind of joking but half joking saying that Ukrainian government is probably working better now in the recent seven months that it used to be before February 24. So if everyone expected Ukraine to unravel somehow with the Ukrainian governance, it didn't happen, I mean Ukraine has proved quickly that we're not a failed state something to the contrary of it, which got together in many ways you know in terms of a political consolidation and so on. So this resilience is still around I mean it's a dark time for us it's a difficult war we all enduring some some struggles and some suffering and. And every day I'm seeing some photos of people who are dying in the war and some I already know quite a lot of people, my friends and colleagues who lost someone near to them close to them in this war. So don't get me wrong I mean we don't have an euphoria here in Ukraine or any kind of unlimited bombless optimism, but we understand though that means that Russia has failed in its attempt to subjugate the trend that Ukraine will be there to stay as a country as a sovereign country. What borders will we have that's something to discuss further in the course of our conversation today but hopefully will be actually returning many of those lands lost since February 21. We are the inflection point here I think, after the Harkiv offensive, we have proof that not only we can defend our lands heroically but we can also also go on offensive and actually have kind of offensive that's really unravel the entire Russian strategy for the region and you know put their war effort in even more trouble, even though it wasn't in trouble already before that, proving to everyone outside of Ukraine that Ukraine is not hopeless that assistance to Ukraine should be seen as something done in vain that Russia would prevail anyway that Ukraine would be able to liberate land so the importance of Harkiv offensive was extremely extremely high, you know, I would say, even though the way slowed down in that direction but still. As we speak right now there are talks about Ukrainian troops entering Le Mans, there are talks about Ukrainian troops penetrating Russian defenses around Severe Donetsk, or, I think it was Lisa chancek actually but you know, getting close on those points that were taken by Russia was a lot of effort and then Russia and then Ukrainians basically done it was in like a week plus. You know, and we're also close to Donetsk and in her son just as a day there was a key village just north of her son which was liberated by Ukrainian troops. It's not going easy a quick there obviously but that's not the point the point is that Russia is really trembling now these days about Crimea. You know, think about this turn around of events, you know, in the late February, you had Putin thinking that he would have Ukraine in the back within days. And now they're worrying about Crimea, you know, they're not capable sometimes of defending their own towns that are involved in the war effort like the other advisors, you know, and I think it's even US administration has provided their opinion that they are legitimate to Ukrainian military since there are the missiles being based that are they're launching against Ukrainian targets so we have right to launch them back. So, right now Russia is probably trying to up their game in the way and find some solution or sidetrack or something and that's why they're looking for this magic stick magic wonder or something like that. Wonder wonder wonder stick wonder want right. I was looking for the right word, and they are probably coming to this idea that they need this referendum in occupied lands, and then the people they are freely obviously quotation marks would say they want to be part of Russia and that would change situation on the ground but it might not it will probably will not. I mean, everyone have to see through it. This lens are Ukrainian no one sells you know and Ukraine will not stop Ukraine will wage war. If they use nukes. I mean, we will still wage the war and try to liberate land so US dimension is extremely important as well. I would like to invite everyone who is interested in 10 days from now there will be a conference by quantity ratio I was speaking about US Ukraine relations, which is my field. And I would like to conclude saying that the resolve of international pro Ukraine coalition is extremely important not just Ukraine's resilience. So those two taken together as a prerequisites for the Ukraine to be successful and Russia to be defeated in some way. And that's where I will stay stop with my introductory remarks. Great. Thank you so much. That's, it's interesting to hear, you know we hear so much in the news and it's sort of interesting to hear your perspective really reinforcing a lot of the narratives that we've heard. So I want to go next to Asada. You have written, you know, about not only Ukrainian women but you know kind of the gendered implications of the conflict in Ukraine. And so I just wondered if you would talk about what you've seen in terms of the, you know, sort of looking at Ukrainian politics and society through this this gendered lens and sort of the implications of the war for that. Okay. Thank you so much, Deborah and such a pleasure to be with my colleagues on this panel on. I'll speak quickly about the, the sort of gender refracted experiences of Ukrainians in this war. This is something that at crisis group, we were certainly looking at from very early on, you know from the sort of highly gendered kind of Russia, as it as it sort of launched its invasion, and on the Ukrainian side, the sort of mobilization across Ukrainian society, but you know very visibly women to the Ukrainian army invoking gender as part of national spirit of resistance or as part of the rationale for this unjust war. But to look specifically at how it's impacted people. I'll give you a quick overview of the research that we've done in the finding that I mean I spent about two weeks in Poland, along the along the border with Ukraine and in major cities, and in Poland where Ukrainian women and children were transiting through or staying and we've also done a great deal of research inside Ukraine itself looking at the internally displaced population and to give you a sense of the numbers. You know Ukraine's population pre invasion at 41 million seven million people have fled areas of active combat and are internally displaced 7.3 million have left the country and 90% of those are women and children, because of Ukraine's policy of conscription for men of a fighting age with with some exceptions. So, you know, as with, as with all conflict, the situation has created really acute and stark vulnerabilities for for people of all genders. I'll speak quickly first about those inside the country who are internally displaced. I find it's are that there's a particular sort of subgroup who are most vulnerable within internal displacement many people are able to stay among this, you know, seven, seven million plus who are internally displaced are able to stay with families or who found accommodation. But there's a really vulnerable group who are staying in collective shelters that's around 3% of people who are displaced internally they're living in churches or rehabilitated schools and dormitories. My colleagues at crisis group visited one former university dorm where 16 people were sharing one kitchen. The kind of shortage of accommodation, and these kind of cramped living conditions have really escalated the risks of gender based violence. Women and children, women and girls who are looking for shelter are exposed to people who are offering them accommodation in exchange for for sex and economic labor. The hotlines that were inside the country set up by by different charities and NGOs received many calls about this, you know, inside the country. The scale of the need of supporting the internally displaced sort of shifted this as a priority simply because of the overwhelming nature of other needs. And as well, you know the civil service is quite overwhelmed many people many civil servants have left. So essentially the challenge of bringing in a organization scaling up and being able to attend to like the specific gender vulnerabilities of those who are internally displaced is really, I think it's going to is a challenge now and it will be an ongoing challenge. Displaced men internally who are not obliged to serve in the army have a very hard time. The sense is that they should be fighting that they should be at the front and even if they have a valid exemption for medical conditions or because if they have three or more children. It's very difficult to find housing. Many are reluctant to registers ID keys out of fear of discrimination. The LGBTQ community internally displaced and externally and I'll turn very quickly afterwards to those who are externally displaced also faces difficulties. Their level of acceptance in society was fragile even before the invasion and now staying in communal shelters and and sort of disjointed accommodation has made it very tough. You know, we've heard accounts of trans women being beaten in shelters. It's a difficult situation for them and for the Roma who often don't have the papers to be able to register as displaced and avail themselves of the resources that the internally displaced might be able to access. They tend to be streamed to as a carpets if I'm saying that correctly. Hopefully, so that's so that's a challenge to but alongside that you know I think we have seen an incredible scale of mobilization of women as volunteer forces, the dominant, you know 70% of volunteers internally are women so there's like a tremendous mobilization of women not only to join the army but to be part of this volunteer for those leaving, which are the other 7 million. You know face pretty acute dangers. Many of those who are leaving when I was working along the border in March, April, we're coming from places that were active conflict zone so they left highly traumatized. They were, you know, very often exhausted from long journeys and the risks that they face along the way, kidnapping human trafficking, there were many young girls who are traveling on their own or young girls who are with mothers who were sort of dazed with the concern for husbands brothers sons where they're fighting, you know, sort of, sort of psychologically really broken very those young women are very vulnerable to trafficking, and the scale of trafficking and exploitation online is very hard to assess but very real. So I'll just point that out as something that I think the frontline response in Poland the feminist organizations and the trafficking organizations are really focused on online trafficking of young women. Many cases we've seen I mean I trolled myself alongside some, you know, all these groups Tinder, Facebook, you know groups where refugees are sort of meant to be able to find hosts hosts in different places. This is where where people are preyed upon. So to wrap up labor exploitation, I think it's the next wave of concern after initial returns. Many are going back now, because the elderly the Roma, those who simply find it too difficult to settle whether in Poland or elsewhere. And then finally, lastly, the challenge of reproductive and health rights, especially in Poland where the majority of displaced Ukrainian women are staying abortion is highly restricted even access to contraception is very hard. And so for cases of those who suffered war rape gender based violence. It's very difficult it's a it's a hostile environment to have any kind of such reproductive and sexual health needs so I focused on the most immediate concerns and risks, and I realize that, you know, those are the most immediate dangers but I think we're still at a point where those are the most pressing so I wanted to give you a kind of panorama of what those inside are facing in terms of particular gender vulnerabilities and those outside so hopefully we'll have a chance to talk about, you know, other issues later in our discussion thank you. Thanks so much, I have so many questions for you. But let me turn first to our other panelists. Lewis, you have written about the different reactions of Latin American countries to the war the Russian invasion, and I just wondered if you share some of your thoughts about that. Let me start by thinking New America for organizing this final and environment to speak about the Latin American reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And as the word develops I think it is necessary to understand how and why global self governments in general approach the Russian actions in Ukraine the way they do. And this is especially the case if we want to win more support for Ukraine from the global self. So I really welcome New America's attention to the various positions of countries in different latitudes. With that said, let me give you a brief overview of how Latin American governments have reacted thus far, and all the countries in the region agree on one thing. They do not want to impose sanctions on Russia that this is where the consensus breaks. The region has responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine following two main approaches. The first one is that most Latin American states have to put a Ukraine using arguments that have to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and self discrimination. And these countries have described the Russian actions as an illegal use of force and as a crime of aggression. But we also have a second group. Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela see the Russian actions as a legitimate response to the expansion of NATO. The strategic considerations and also authoritarian affinities inform this position. These are countries that the West has sanctioned due to their authoritarian practices and Russia is one of these main allies. So I think that it would be easy to conclude that this minority of Latin American countries might have a pro-Russian stance if we only focus on this consideration. But I think that this country's posture is more accurately described as anti-Western, more than a posture accepting the Russian use of force against a weaker neighbor. And these are countries also that highlight moments when Western countries have abused international law with minor consequences. For example, during the IR work in 2003, and they also disapprove of the bias application and enforcement of different rules against non-Western states. They also point out to the selective attention to problems in some developing countries. And finally, then again, when they respond to why they are supporting Russia or why they are not doing more against Russia, they point out the expansion of Western projects such as NATO. Now, there is a third group of countries that falls in between these two respondents. These are Brazil and Mexico, where we have the Brazilian and the Mexican diplomats condemning Russia's use of military force against Ukraine, going to different firms like the UN or the OAS, the Organization of American States, criticizing the different actions. At the same time, though, the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro and the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, better known as AMLO, have said that they are skeptical of Western actions against the Putin administration. So now I'm going to use the last two minutes that I have to give you a little bit of the latest development from this group, especially coming from Mexico. On September 16 during the celebrations of Mexican Independence Day, Andrés Manuel López Obrador proposed a plan to address the war. And he asked to create a mediating body with three main actors, the Pope, Antonio Guterres from the UN, Narendra Modi, the president of India. And what AMLO wants is these three people to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, and he also wants or proposes to seek a five-year global truce of all conflicts. And this is a plan that AMLO proposed without consulting the different actors that would be included. And he's also planned that has been criticized, especially in Mexico, as a plot to appease domestic criticisms against his potential support for Putin. And certainly it has been criticized as a project that would solidify Russian gains in the conflict, especially if we do get a five-year truce that would only free the different military gains or military advancements that Russia has made in Ukraine. And certainly I think that, just to conclude and wrap up, I think that those divisions that we see in Latin America, these different groups and tensions are something that we can also see in other regions in the global south, where we have countries that have diplomatic traditions that are very deeply embedded in the rule base, or they're following international law and international organizations to face these problems, but at the same time, these are countries that might not want to impose sanctions. And I think that it's necessary to understand the different preferences informing why these countries seem to have this contradictory position. And in the next round of questions, we can talk a little bit more about the possessions of this country when it comes to imposing sanctions on Russia. Great, thanks. Super interesting. So let me turn now to Alex. And first of all, thank him for suggesting that we do something like this. Way back, we were at ISA last year. This is how these, you know, sideline conversations turn into sort of bigger and more important conversations. But Alex, you've voiced skepticism about the likelihood that the war would restore the liberal order. And I wonder if you could talk about what you see to be its more likely effects on global order and global security. Yeah, certainly. Thank you, Debbie. And it's just a pleasure to share the virtual stage with such thoughtful panelists. I'll say I think maybe we have to revisit some of the reasons behind the coalescing of the West that we saw, which was indeed remarkable. Right. When you think about coordinated central bank sanctions, right, the ECB and the US when you think about NATO actually expanding to include Sweden and Finland you think about the cancellation of Nord Stream, the imposition of individual of oligarchs, the affirmations of support Ukraine, bilateral defense aid by so many individual NATO members and some without. So, again, the coalescing of the West is truly remarkable. And I think the way Dan and I have written about it Dan next in our piece initially was this is sort of, you know, the proof that the kind of liberal ordering cartel, when it acts in unison, right, truly still is a force in global politics right despite books like ours to the contrary. But I think we have to dig a little bit behind this. Sort of two, you know, important reasons I was sort of like right one is the speed and the scale of the Russian invasion. Like jolted everyone to go to their maximal level of what they were willing to do very quickly. Right. This wasn't sort of a sequence playing out. Oh, now done that's has been recognized and then, you know, fast forward three months later now that was a little bit offensive. Everything happened at once. It was the nightmare scenario. And because of the lack of coordination amongst the West over things like Afghanistan and the subdeal, things were quite scripted to happen quickly on cue of certain thresholds were met. Yeah. The second thing was Russia's actions in the West were so highly a porn, right that there's this broad stigmatization of Russia and you saw that with the withdrawal of the private sector from Russia right I think this is one of the unanticipated things that happened companies over 1000 of them now pulling out and changing their minds within 48 hours board calls in the middle of the night. Companies like BP that's endured every kind of political risk in Russia saying no we're out, we will strand assets and investments. It's just not worth the candle to be associated with this type of action. So I think when we extend beyond the West. Yes, there is a concern at the violence and stability there is is even condemnation of Russia, right, but we don't have the stigmatization of Russia for its actions to the same degree. I would argue not even in the post Soviet space. We have deep concern in this post Soviet space. We have certainly some calls for supporting Ukraine, but there's also real concern that Russia might lash out in this sort of neo imperial moment and target places like Kazakhstan or resume hostilities with Georgia. As Louis said, what's really unpopular in the post Soviet space are also the sanctions right. A lot of the countries are caught in this kind of neutrality status on the one hand. They are concerned. They're scared even of Russian intentions the instability in the region. But on the other hand, they see sanctions as comprehensive and is not giving them room to breathe. Right. Take a government like Georgia that has also been invaded by Russia and the government their views. It's wine industry. 50% of it exports go to Russia a good proportion of its tourists come from Russia. And quite frankly, some Georgian officials say where were these sanctions when we were invaded. Why do you want us to sacrifice the degree that you're saying and you didn't come to our sister a little bit of that going on to Finally, I think there's deep concern in the post Soviet space about the sort of security vacuum in the region. We've seen recently renewed hostilities as Azerbaijan attacked Armenia proper not just Nagorno-Karabakh and we've seen actual open all out conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan now whether there's a causal link there between Russia's war losses and decisions to do this. I, I know I don't know I wouldn't make that claim but I think there's a broad perception that the region in terms of security dynamics is changing. So where does that leave us. I think part of what we're seeing is not some run to get out of the dollar. Right, or, you know, create parallel kinds of anti hegemonic payment systems. Maybe those will happen. But I do think this is accelerating trends towards the non West where when we see where are the main centers of sanctions evasion they're in the UAE. Turkey was engaging in some of this and now they've announced under pressure from the Treasury that it won't accept Russian mirror cards, but there are brokering opportunities here. I think many countries, China, India the ones that abstain which amount to half the world's population would rather not pick sides, right, for a variety of reasons, whether it's, you know, the kind of trope of sort of you know western imperialism Russia sort of feeding that, whether it's perceived hypocrisy of the West right you were so concerned why did you go into Iraq, right why do you want us to be so concerned about this now, or whether it's just geopolitical hedging, I would say this is India stance right that they don't want to pick sides, because they view themselves as a great power emerging power able to engage with all sides. In terms of the global south. You know, I, you know what one final footnote here, perhaps what's changed in the last week with both Modi, and she's critical comments at the SEO is that there's a perception that Ukraine actually might be have greater successes on the battlefield that they considered before right and so they're starting to criticize Putin in a way that they didn't. But I think in terms of ordering. The name of the game for a lot of these powers is hedging, not happy about what's happening. Certainly a lot of them. You know showing no sympathy for the plight of Ukraine, but also putting this in a broader global context that the West is quite selected in who it condemns and who it supports. That's super interesting. I will before I launch another round, let me remind people in the audience that you can. You can ask questions, we will we will answer them. And I am told that we are using Slido to submit questions, and it's in the box located to the right of the video. So, so, so look to the box and submit your questions. But I'm struck as I'm listening to all of you. Actually about. I think something that you said, Alex kind of lined it up for me. When you talked about the liberal order cartel, and it seems like that language is actually telling us something about the liberal order and how it's operated that's not so liberal. That maybe has influenced some of people's responses. And so maybe I'll ask each of you to kind of react to, to this, this idea of of the response to Ukraine as being kind of part and parcel of, you know, the, the, the impulse of Ukraine toward the West, and the way to which, you know, this embrace, you know, how tight should it be. Certainly, Volodymyr talked about it as critical to resilience. And yet it also, you know, sort of has his dark side as well. And so I will, I will let each of you kind of respond to this issue of the liberal order cartel and I mean, when I was thinking about as I mean I was really taken actually by the London review of books. And so what you did about, you know, about issues of reproductive rights and kind of the distinctions between, you know, rights in Ukraine, rights of sort of the internal internally displaced people but then a people that are going to countries that have very different kinds of orientations for those sorts of things. So anyway, let me turn first to Volodymyr like how, how tight do you want this embrace to be. So I want to be embraced by the liberal order. Yes. Well, first of all, myself personally I'm very liberal person but doesn't mean that everyone in Ukraine is I mean obviously we have all sorts of ideologies here. But in terms of choosing where we want to be, I mean the Ukrainian nation is saying out loud that we want to be with the West we want to be with this family of European nations and definitely not within this some kind of a post Russia post Eurasian or something order so Ukrainians are now paying dearly was their lives and if you remember the, the, the revolution of dignity for instance you don't mind done. Also, you know, Ukrainians went to the streets to protest, you know, the decision by former president in a college not to sign a cessation agreement so that was quite telling to a lot of people and changed editors here in this country but also attitudes towards Ukraine and other countries so. And right now I mean. Well, I don't my first of all the whole theory that Russia is peddling for a long time now that it was the West to blame for what is going on because the West was dragging Ukraine into you and later and how, how was it dragging when we were kept on the doorstep without an immediate or even longer term perspective of joining either of those two. And also, I mean, of course, as Rensky was saying even bright February 24 that, well, if you want us to make a formal statement that we're not planning to go into NATO now. We can do that. That didn't stop Russian. And now we're finding out that one of the, you know, right hand man's men of Putin, Cossack also came up with some plan that Ukraine will denounce this idea of native membership early in the war. And then Putin said, doesn't matter really, you know, we're going to go on proceed with this invasion. So, so it wasn't about NATO wasn't about you was about Ukraine primarily and and of course, Putin, you know, this year being 100 years of since establishment of Russia and Putin approaching quickly enough 70 years to believe his own life, you know. So, apparently, just to bring Crimea into Russia, 80 years ago wasn't enough. And he just came up with this idea and in terms of embrace of the West. The tighter it is a better for me and frankly right now it's a lifeline for us. I mean, because of course we should understand it's not just about the war it's about the ruins in economy. It's about the ruins, frankly, you know, and whatever recovery effort there will be ahead of us, it's going to be long, it's going to be painful. It's going to be taking not just years maybe decades, and we will be depending on the Western support here. And we understand that. And also, of course, from the military assistance and as they spoke about it, you know that there are IDP people like themselves that are refugees refugees sometimes even in a better situation because it's getting some support from the governments, hosting them but IDPs here, a lot of people here just rely exclusively fully on their own savings, and after seven months of war, those savings, you know, So that's problematic and of course we want to be part of the Western society or community of nations and whatever happened of course it only reinforces resolution that's resolved among Ukrainians that we should get away from Moscow. There was a famous Ukrainian writer, political poet and political, you know, kind of guy, 100 years ago and he came up with this slogan, head with Moscow so get away, get away from Moscow and culturally, civilizationally, politically, now security wise, militarily, it still remains very relevant to Ukraine. And there's no other way for us to go then, but to join this community. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Asada, you know, please respond kind of how you see fit. But I think that there's a lot of difficulties actually in the sort of interaction between the sort of Western norms and the people that are fleeing. Absolutely. I'll start with what what you touched upon before which is, which is Poland, Poland is a main destination country for Ukrainian women and children who have left their homes, and the implications of Poland. You know, before this conflict, the realities of Poland and Hungary sort of sliding into non democratic realities out of sync with the rest of the EU and the ethos of the EU seemed seemed regrettable, but mainly a problem that would be sort of endured within borders. I think now we see Poland's kind of wholesale sort of shutting down of sexual and reproductive key sexual and reproductive rights for women as something that has far wider implications. And, and I've really been struck by the inertia of the women, peace and security community in the EU and wider around around dealing with this. It's complicated Poland is a sovereign state it has sovereign laws around around outlawing abortion. But the realities are that, you know, in practice, even though it has some exceptions for for abortion in cases of rape. Practically, you know to get a prosecutor to sign off and to go through the rigmarole of getting that legally approved is almost impossible. There are some implications for, you know, a very large number of Ukrainian women who are enduring life displaced in Poland, confronting trafficking can drop, you know, confronting, confronting survival sex, you know all of the circumstances that were in place placement inflicts on women at the same time kind of coming up against, you know, a regime of a liberal kind of regulations around basic reproductive rights and the sort of difficulties. I think that the EU and the sort of wider Western liberal feminism cartel, you know their sort of inability to deal with this I mean largely it's Polish feminist groups and European feminist groups dealing with this in a very practical way sort of giving women counseling on the phone in Ukrainian getting abortion medication or pills sent from, you know, Holland or whatever. But it's hard I mean if you're staying in a refugee center, you know, you don't have an address. It's very hard. So this is certainly a kind of clash of sort of expected norms and rights within within the EU space that we're seeing kind of utterly neglected in this situation and sort of the right wing. And I'm shocked about it ascendancy in Poland. I met a lot of Ukrainian women who were having to inside Poland who were teaching their who were having their kids do online schooling and Ukrainian because Polish schools demand that the children of Ukrainian women, did study in Polish so you know many of those who are in Poland want to go back soon they don't want to lose one or two years of schooling and, and these seem to be kind of sort of Polish nationalistic responses I mean certainly Turkey. You know spent a year or two offering schooling for Syrian refugees in Arabic before they eventually move to Turkish when it became clear that this was a community that was going to settle. So there are many sort of issues like this that I think are the sort of clash of the country where so many Ukrainians have ended up settling. And the political realities sort of liberal political realities of that country and the sort of difficulties of responding to that amongst the countries, you know key countries who are who are, you know, leading members of NATO and at the forefront of the women peace and security agenda. And very lastly, I'll just mention that you know it seems as though the feminist community in Russia is is cowed and repressed and and you know very much sort of intimidated because of the implications of speaking out against this war in Russia I guess you know coming from a country Iran that's been sanctioned and whose feminist community has been isolated from its feminist counterparts for years and has suffered as a result of that I would just sort of flag the idea that that visa bands, you know which are very understandable sort of the sort of seeking out of them for sort of just holidaying sort of purposes for Russians. You know there is a civil society implication to, to bands like that where sort of right minded Russians who oppose this war from a feminist perspective and other perspectives may may sort of see themselves isolated in addition to being repressed internally and that's just something to bear in mind you know I think sanctions ends up making feminist communities very sort of detached and cut off and and they sort of cease to grow as a result and I don't have an answer to that but I think it's just worth recognizing the sort of after sort of reverberations of sanctions, the unintended consequences of so that's what comes to mind now. Thank you. Right. Thanks so much. And yeah you know I think the irony. Sitting in the United States, I have been speaking. I am president of the International Studies Association meeting right now and thinking about our citing policy. And we are dealing with exactly those kinds of issues because of course in many parts of the United States. Women also may suffer difficulties with reproductive rights and their health should an emergency situation arrive in an unfortunate state. So I think that the, the, the irony is we're seeing, you know, kind of this tension among, you know, around liberal ideas, even within states that we assume are quite liberal, which, which actually brings me I think in good stead to, to I think that it's, you know, part of the, you know, talking about the resistance of sanctions among Latin American countries which you said was one, you know, point of agreement. How, how much does this sort of tie into, you know, different perspectives on on the West and embrace in the West and sort of Western ideas, I guess, versus Western countries, which are two different things. I think that that is an excellent question, therefore, especially because I think that the Latin American reaction also exemplify the vision between the operational components of the liberal international order if we wish to call them like that their multilateral organizations international law on the one hand, and then liberal values and Western or curtail as Alex was saying leadership of this international order. And the Latin American countries in general, what they're saying is that they don't want to impose sanctions because they actually prefer to have a multilaterally designed coordinated response. They argue that they prefer solutions to controversies that would follow international law over what they see as just targeted economic measures imposed without the approval of a multilateral organization. What they argue is that a couple of countries can impose sanctions with that for them is very much like a kind of unilateral move or curtail move instead of actually following the procedures of delivering international order. If we also pay attention not only to economic sanctions but also to sending military equipment or military aid to Ukraine, what a lot of the Latin American governments are saying is that they do not support the windows in a unilateral way, because, or without multilateral authorization, because these would only escalate the violence even further and they prefer to have something a little bit more coordinated. Again, it's different when we pay attention to the values or the leadership. I think that there is a consensus among different Latin American groups that they want a more coordinated response through different multilateral organizations. But then that consensus breaks and we pay attention to the kind of values that they are following. And here, I think that one of the main things that I'm worried about and that we haven't touched upon also is about the effect of Russian propaganda in the global south and the kind of tensions and divisions that the propaganda is causing. And in Latin America, we're seeing that where even when the countries or the governments in the region are not imposing sanctions, they could regulate the different Russian outlets that are spreading some of this fake news or different propaganda in the region to basically say that this is just the West trying to do again what they have been always doing and expanding into regions by basically crashing pluralism in the international order. And they are also exploding the Latin American deep history of facing the West and facing the US when it comes to changing governments and changing different values. So what they are saying is that, or at least what the Russian propaganda I think is doing is benefiting from this idea that, well, the liberal international order shouldn't be liberal. There should be a pluralist international order with different governments can coexist with different ways of governing can coexist. So I think that we need to think a little bit deeper in how we even conceptualize international order to separate between these two different components and maybe we can condense different Latin American governments to sanction. So we do use this more coordinated multilateral venues instead of just asking for unilateral economic sanctions. But then again, I think it's also difficult to disentangle the operational components of the order with the different values and leadership that comes with the liberal international order. So I think that's actually super interesting to think about the distinction between a liberal cartel and a pluralist global order, you know, that that's a very interesting kind of distinction. I think among different ideas about democracy kind of underlying the different ones. And I'm really glad you brought that up because I think that's exactly the kind of thing that the planetary politics project is trying to, you know, sort of bring up bring to the fore, you know, because that that does pose potential solutions as well. Alex, I'm going to turn to you. Yeah, I mean I'll, I'll just pick up on something Luis just said, you know the difference between sort of the infrastructure of the order versus its constitutive norms. And I think, you know, one of those norms that doesn't resonate resonate, unfortunately, from my perspective is that Ukraine's fighting for its democracy. Right. Of course it's fighting for its democracy and actually you've seen at the decentralized at the local level, such a response from Ukrainian civil society and local municipalities and, and the territorial forces themselves would not have been organized without that kind of Democratic self governance. The problem is that prior to this for even for a good many years over 10 years, democracy is a norm has been on the defensive. More and more countries have been sliding. It doesn't mean the same thing that it meant in the 1990s and actually because of also what happened the post Soviet space in the 2000s, it's become synonymous with Western imposed coercion and regime change color revolutions Arab spring, right. So, in some ways saying that this is about democracy feeds into some of these Russian lines about world order. And then say, you know, talking about Ukrainian sovereignty is potentially a more effective message to have in terms of reaching the global south. And then just the second point, what what really strikes me in the means and a lot of the theories coming out about Russia on the IR side I'm not talking about the first channel that's filled with actually genocidal talk and you know the eradication agency, but in terms of some of strategic think tanks and IR commentators. This isn't about Ukraine, which is just stunning to me. Ukraine is rarely mentioned this is about global order contradictions the West NATO it's about like everything else. Except Ukraine. And what strikes me is the assumption here that Russia has that any kind of non Western world or post Western world is a world that it's going to be a really important player in. And I think that might be challenged, or at least sort of empirically assessed to come and and there's no reason actually to assume that in some ways Russia has the kind of contrarian stature and has because it is the revisionist power that seeks to put a spotlight on Western contradictions, but it's not at all clear to me, given it's hollowing out of its capabilities that we're seeing now it's going to be in any position to dictate a post Western sort of plural world and its architecture. Great. Thank you. So we are, we're rapidly approaching end of time. And so I'm going to just give everyone like 30 seconds to wrap up kind of a quick last or actually a minute but I'll say 30 seconds because we all go over, but anyway we'll talk, we'll start again with Sure. Yeah, I would like to pick up where Alex ended actually we had discussions with Alex over the years for my now four years about democracy promotion and liberalism and value based policy and I was always a big fan of American foreign policy becoming values based, and he was, he would often say, when I hear values based policy, I imagine American airplanes with their missiles under their wings, coming to place like Iraq so we have a discussion but my view was always that I'd like a democratic or liberal to be with cheese, to be capable of defending itself and promoting itself actually enough and that's why we would want to be part of it, we don't want to be part of something which is like, you know shapeless and without any instinct to fight for itself and defend itself. There aren't different type of liberal order. It wouldn't survive by itself you need to nurture it and and that's a great thing that you have an administration now in America, which is doing that trying to do that and actually American leadership is back I mean I couldn't remember the times when the American leadership was so needed like it is right now and we really appreciate it here in Ukraine, and also we're not going to give up on democracy. It's not because of war, war powers, you know, limitations on our human rights, civil rights like myself I couldn't go abroad for instance. It's not very prone and conducive for democracy here in this country because of the war, but in a longer term a longer term of democracy. Thank you. Great, thank you. Asada, last words. I'll just pick up on this really oops. Oh, can you hear me. I'll just pick up on this really interesting point about the infrastructure the gap between the architecture of the liberal international order, and the, the use of its, the use of that architecture for the advocate, and advocacy of its normative values. The women peace and security agenda has an infrastructure NATO has a women peace and security, sort of institution within its command Nordic states who are in NATO have ministers or on voice to WPS. The US State Department has someone sitting in the global, the Office of Global Women's Affairs which is connected to the White House I mean, there are institutions across all of these countries that kind of compose the liberal international order that could take up women peace and security issues in this war, and that they could, you know, sort of use those institutions to pursue and defend the liberal values and the dangers that women are facing that are coming up and that's simply not happening. And I think it opens up so much room for the Russian disinformation and the sort of very sort of transactional sort of use of that disinformation to sort of point out that these, these policies are Western hypocrisy that they're empty and that they're used to oppress the global south when the oppressors of women are jihadist groups for example which is something you hear everywhere. So, you know why not take up that opportunity, their issues in Poland their issues around sanctions or issues around forced conscription in Ukraine which carries a lot of dangers for men and women both in Ukraine doesn't need it at this point you think Ukraine has a very vital society that's coming forward to defend it and wouldn't that project so much strength if it could do that without imposing forced conscription so yeah simply to end I mean we have an agenda we have institutions that are meant to back it and why are the states lead that liberal order not availing themselves of what they created at a time when it's urgent. Thank you, Luis. I'm going to echo some of the points that we have been talking about the international order, especially because I think that the division that we see in how Latin America in particular with the global south and in general is reacting might be because there is a messaging failure from Ukraine's allies. I think that we as I was saying we portrayed as a you are in favor of the liberal international order or you are against, instead of lead you are in favor of supporting a small country that is being invaded. That is facing interference by major power, which I think would resonate much more in the global south because, well, a lot of countries in the global south have phase that interferes in the past. I think that Trinidad Tobago, for example, was very successful at convincing Latin American states of stripping Russia from its observers that is the organization of American states exactly using this kind of messaging by basically saying Russia is attacking as a smaller neighbor is interfering in the smaller neighborhood, we know how that is, let's actually support Ukraine. So I think that we need to rethink how we message this in order to gain more support from the global south. Thank you, Alex. Last words. I've said all there is to say on this topic and I've learned tremendous amount from the panelists so thank you again for bringing us together. Thank you everyone, and thanks to the audience. We can't see you but we hope you enjoyed it, and we look forward to further interactions thank you everyone. Bye bye.