This page provides a summary of resources and events regarding Ukraine and the current crisis there. Items include interviews and opinion pieces that do not necessarily reflect REEEC perspectives. If you would like to suggest a resource to add to this list, please contact us at reec@illinois.edu.
REEEC Faculty, Student, and Alumni Engagements:
"Terrell Jermaine Starr: Reporting with purpose", STORIED (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), June 2, 2022 (Terrell Starr, REEES Alumnus, interviewed)
"Terrell Jermaine Starr on life and war in Ukraine", WILL, April 21, 2022 (Terrell Starr, REEES Alumnus, interviewed)
"Nationalism, Weak States, and Unrealistic Realism", April 12, 2022 (Eteri Tsintsadze-Maass, Ph.D. Candidate at University of Kentucky, Summer Research Lab Alumna)
"How does Russian invasion exacerbate Ukraine's humanitarian crisis?", March 29, 2022 (Cynthia Buckley, Professor of Sociology, REEES Faculty Affiliate)
Photos of the Jane Byrn Park Rally in Support of Ukraine in Chicago, March 26, 2022 (Laurel Tollison, REEES MA Student)
"'I've seen the airstrikes': U of I grad reports from Ukraine", WCIA 3, March 16, 2022 (Terrell Starr, REEES Alumnus, interviewed)
"Kyiv or Kiev? Zelensky or Zelenskyy? For Ukraine, spelling is a political act", Forward, March 7, 2022 (Roman Ivashkiv, Slavic Languages and Literatures, interviewed)
"Collateral Damage: Armenia and Post-SWIFT Russia", March 4, 2022 (Justin Tomczyk, REEEC FLAS Alumnus)
“REEES alumnus Terrell Starr is in Ukraine reporting on the war”, February 28, 2022
“A new Cold War, or the start of World War III? How historians see the invasion of Ukraine”, USA Today, February 26, 2022 (John Randolph, Director, REEEC, interviewed)
"Local professors, elected officials weigh in on Russian invasion of Ukraine", HOI ABC News, February 24, 2022 (Carol Leff, Associate Professor Emerita, Political Science)
“University of Illinois students and faculty react to Ukraine conflict”, WAND News, February 23, 2022 (Valeria Sobol, Slavic Languages and Literatures, interviewed)
"Triumvirate: America, China, and Russia as Global Actors and Rivals", UIUC Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Course, February 1 - March 22, 2022 (Richard Tempest, Slavic Languages and Literatures, instructor)
Opportunities to help:
Terrell J. Starr
REEES Alumnus Terrell Starr is currently in Kiev, Ukraine, providing on-the-ground journalist coverage. You can support his work in Ukraine through CashApp, Venmo, or PayPal.
Translation Opportunities
If you are a speaker of Ukrainian or Russian seeking volunteer opportunities, the Translation Crisis Group is looking for volunteer translation/interpretation services in both languages. The majority of translating is remote, so you can be located in any country or time zone.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is organizing the evacuation of pediatric cancer patients from Ukraine to the United States and is looking for two categories of helpers:
- Volunteers with a biomedical background (science or medical, not necessarily MDs) who are fluent in English and can read Cyrillic (Russian, Ukrainian, etc.), and who can cover one to two six-hour shifts per week to enter new patient data into the patient registry and help facilitate communications with the center command and support teams.
- Physicians who speak Ukrainian and English and can support the translation of Ukrainian medical records into English (on a flexible schedule, no specific shifts).
If you are interested, please contact St. Jude’s Jennifer McArthur, DO, at Jennifer.McArthur@STJUDE.ORG.
Resources to Help Displaced Scholars
ASEEES is working with the newly created International Task Force for Displaced Scholars (ITFDS), established by a group of scholars and graduate students, to collect information on specific support for displaced scholars.
Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO)
SUCHO is a group of cultural heritage professionals – librarians, archivists, researchers, programmers – working together to identify and archive at-risk sites, digital content, and data in Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions while the country is under attack.
NPR offers a non-exhaustive list of organizations asking for assistance here:
"Want to support the people in Ukraine? Here's how you can help" (February 25, 2022)
Ukrainian publishing house in Kharkiv - savchook.com
A Ukrainian publishing house in Kharkiv, whose mission is to "publish books on Ukrainian art, architecture, and ethnography" and "to bring the names of great Ukrainian scholars and writers back from the verge of oblivion." The publisher ships books internationally. There is a greater selection of titles on the Ukrainian version of the webpage, though you can write the owner an email at savchook.buy@gmail.com, and they usually quickly post the title in English as well.
| Local Initiatives | |
|---|---|
| Carle Illinois College of Medicine Relief Project |
Ukraine Jewish Relief Fund, Illini Chabad |
| Medical Support | ||
|---|---|---|
| Lifeline Ukraine | RAZOM: Emergency Response | Sunflower of Peace Foundation |
| Veterans and Internally Displaced Persons | ||
|---|---|---|
| British-Ukrainian Aid | Caritas Ukraine | CrimeaSOS |
| People in Need: SOS Ukraine | Ukrainian People With Disabilities in Crisis | UN Crisis Relief: Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund |
| Aid for Refugees Facing Racism | ||
| Black Women 4 Black Lives |
| Independent Media | ||
|---|---|---|
| Kyiv Independent | Institute of Mass Information | Ukraine Crisis Media Center |
| Religious and Ethnic Minorities | ||
|---|---|---|
| JDC: Emergency in Ukraine | United Jewish Appeal Federation | Roma Women Fund |
The War in Russia: Politics, Protests, Society:
"No to War: How Russian authorities are suppressing anti-war protests", OVD-Info. OVD-Info is an independent Russian media project on human rights and political persecutions in Russia.
"Cracked Heads and Tasers: Results of the March 6th Anti-War Protests", OVD-Info, March 3, 2022.
"'My future is taken away from me': Russians flee to escape consequences of Moscow's war", The Guardian, March 3, 2022.
"Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage", New York Times, March 4, 2022.
"Incriminating Instagram: The Russian authorities want to outlaw Meta as 'extremist'. What does this mean for social media users in Russia?", Meduza, March 11, 2022.
"Moscow police beat and torture women after anti-war protests", Mediazona, March 12, 2022.
Online Resources:
Illini Everywhere: Ukrainian Illini, Since 1907 – Student Life and Culture Archives, UIUC
This page discusses Ukrainian students, the Ukrainian Collections, Ukrainian Studies, and the Ukrainian Student Association at Illinois.
Discussion Forum: War Against Ukraine – Slavic Review
This page hosts moderated discussions of articles, forums, and book reviews – these short pieces offered here are authored by leading scholars in the field.
Ukraine Country Guide – Slavic, East European & Eurasian Collections & Services, UIUC
This research guide provides an array of resources pertaining to Ukraine, including access to archives and periodical resources.
Borderlands Web Archive – International and Area Studies Library, UIUC
This is an online archive curated by the International and Area Studies Library, working to capture highly-multilingual online content of global borderlands, which is at increased risk of disappearing due to political, linguistic, historical, religious, social, environmental and/or other factors.
Ukraine Research Guide – NYU Libraries
This guide assembles recommended literature and other resources for all who are interested in the history of Ukraine and its place in the global context.
Russia’s War on Ukraine – HURI
The Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI) has put together a list of resources for journalists, scholars, and the general public.
Resources for Understanding the Conflict in Ukraine – CSEEES
This is a list of resources, including articles, books, events, and films to help provide context and background for the conflict in Ukraine. The list is curated by the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at The Ohio State University and will be regularly updated.
Ukraine Articles from Nationalities Papers – Cambridge
The articles from Nationalities Papers are available free of charge until the end of March 2022. Topics include the past and present of Ukraine’s history; identity, regionalism, and language; political competition and democratic state-building; and the conflict in Donbas.
Editors' Forum: Hot Spots: Russia's War on Ukraine – Society for Cultural Anthropology
The Society for Cultural Anthropology has gathered a collection of ethnographic essays and firsthand snapshots for this series regarding Russia's war on Ukraine.
Financial Times – Ukraine Reporting
The Financial Times has made its reporting on Ukraine free to read for the duration of the crisis.
Ukraine's Patronal Democracy and the Russian Invasion | CEUPress
The authors of this edited volume, leading Ukrainian scholars supplemented by colleagues from Hungary, examine the chances of an anti-patronal transformation after the war. The book provides an overview of the development of Ukraine's political-economic system: color revolutions in 2004 and 2014 brought democratic transformation, but no change in the patronage system The result was patronal regime cycles instead of the emergence of a Western-type liberal democracy in the country.
Russia's Imperial Endeavor and Its Geopolitical Consequences | CEUPress
The 13 chapters in this volume examine the main geopolitical consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. They examine the ideological tools of history falsification as an integral part of hybrid warfare.
Educational Resources:
The Ukrainian Institute Online Course "Ukraine: History, Culture, and Identities"
The Ukrainian Institute Online Course "Crimea: History and People"
War's Disruption of Language, Culture & Identity
In this episode, Ekateryna (Kat) Bondareva—a member of the LAS Recruitment & Admissions team—details how she is personally affected by the war in Ukraine and the ways in which it has brought into question her language, culture and identity. From her childhood years in the neighborhoods of Donetsk, to her fight to keep the spirit of Ukraine alive through narratives, Kat tells it all…here.
Wartime Music From Ukraine: A Cyber-Ethnography - Dr Adriana Helbig, March 28, 2022
This power point video shows a collection of samples of Ukrainian musical tradition being used to highlight Ukrainian cultural identity and build morale during the war. (Appropriate for high school juniors and seniors and university undergraduates.)
Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Timeline
This is an interactive online timeline, covering the general history of the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples and their interactions from antiquity until 1914. The timeline is divided into six chapters, allowing readers to read a brief summary of each period at their own pace.
K-12:
Russia’s Attack on Ukraine: A Webinar for K-12 Educator
Teaching and Studying Ukraine: List of Resources
Lesson Plan for The Ukrainian Crisis - Choices
Free Resources for Teaching K-12 Students About Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
Resources for Learning and Teaching about the Russia-Ukraine War of 2022
10 Resources for Teaching About the War in Ukraine – Lesson Plans for Teachers
Resources to Help Navigate Students Through the War in Ukraine - BCTF
University Students:
Russian-Ukraine War: Insights and Analysis
The Current State of Russia's War on Ukraine (video, April 6)
On Ukraine, Russia, China, and A Very Messy World (podcast, March 15)
The War in Ukraine (video, March 9)
Targeting Russian Oligarchs (video, March 8)
The Ukraine Crisis: What It Really Means (video, February 11)
Twitter Accounts:
The following are Twitter accounts by academics and reporters on the ground that will allow you to follow events faster than might be possible via news publications. This list has been compiled by The University of Chicago’s Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies.
History:
@Steven-seegel
Political science/Geopolitics:
@SevaUT
English-language coverage of military operations and events on the ground:
@KevinRothrock
Coverage of Ukrainian civil society:
@dkaleniuk
Videos and other Resources:
Adriana Helbig, “For Students – About Ukraine”, University of Pittsburgh, March 01, 2022
Timothy Snyder, “Ukraine: A Normal Country”, Petryshyn Lecture – HURI, February 18, 2022
Ukraїner. The Movie is a visual narration about the everyday life of the least known country of the European continent. The movie consists of six stories woven into a single canvas. Each of them shows a usual day taking place in Ukraine, the country created by unusual people. The main characters are not connected with each other, and the worlds they live in are completely different. Those differences are the glue that keeps this country together and unites it. (Description and further information found here.)