War and the City: Urban Agglomerations in Russia’s Conquest of Donbas

11:30 AM New York l 5:30 PM Vienna

CEU's Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene presents an academic seminar with Serhiy Kudelia, Baylor University, on "Urban Agglomerations in Russia’s Conquest of Donbas."  Since its inception in 2014, the Russo-Ukrainian war has been mainly fought in the most densely urbanized and heavily industrialized region of Ukraine – the Donbas.

Professor Kudelia will examine how the urban and industrial landscapes of the region affected the course of the war and, in turn, were transformed as a result. It will explain how the density of urban agglomerations of Donbas enabled quick removal of Ukraine’s sovereign control over the region in spring of 2014, while its dilapidated industrial base turned into a vital material and ideological resource for the nascent separatist movement. With the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, high urban density of the region became, by contrast, an important structural obstacle for further Russian conquest.

During the seminar Kudelia will draw on his field research in the towns of Donbas prior to 2022 and on his forthcoming book Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia’s War on Ukraine (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2025).

Serhiy Kudelia is Associate Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, where he teaches courses on political regimes, state-building and political violence, and Ukrainian and Russian politics. His research, published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, deals with various aspects of politics in Ukraine, the armed conflict in Donbas and Russo-Ukrainian war. He earlier held teaching and research positions at the University of St. Andrews (UK), the University of Basel (Switzerland), George Washington University (US), Johns Hopkins University (US), and the National University ‘Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’ (Ukraine).

Learn more and register to join

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For more information, call 845-758-6822.

Time: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Online Event

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