“This is much deeper than just ‘let’s figure out how we can get both sides to get along.’”

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When Ukraine declared itself an independent state during the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, most Ukrainians celebrated the historic move. To Vladimir Putin, however, the formal separation of Ukraine from Russia represented the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.

Today, the two nations are locked in war. The inability to end the fighting in the foreseeable future will largely be driven by their shared history, about which Ukraine and Russia have starkly different views.

Another factor working against a swift end to the war is the inability of modern institutions to effectively prevent and handle crises like the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the political scientist and author Ian Bremmer. Still, amid this “geopolitical recession” lie opportunities to reinvigorate waning institutions and create new ones, hopefully rebalancing the global order for the better.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/th....e-big-think-intervie

00:00 - The roots of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict
01:34 - A brief history of the Soviet Union
03:43 - The fall of the Soviet Union
05:07 - The seeds of war
06:31 - The hubris of Putin
09:22 - The global consequences
11:05 - A geopolitical recession
12:28 - The rise of a new global order
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About Ian Bremmer:

Ian Bremmer is president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading global research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. Ian is also a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the BBC, Bloomberg, and many other television stations around the world. Ian has published ten books, including the New York Times bestseller Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism which examines the rise of populism across the world. He also serves as the foreign affairs columnist and editor at large for Time magazine. He currently teaches at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University.

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Read more of our stories on the war in Ukraine:
Ukraine: Made by Lenin, unmade by Putin?
► https://bigthink.com/strange-m....aps/ukraine-lenin-pu
How Russian is Ukraine? Not as much as Putin insists
► https://bigthink.com/the-prese....nt/how-russian-is-uk
What classic Russian literature can tell us about Putin’s war on Ukraine
► https://bigthink.com/the-past/....russia-literature-uk

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