“I think the Poles got carried away with themselves. They want to be helpful,” Stephen Mull, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland, said in an interview. “Rather than waiting to make sure that all this was tied up, they just went ahead and announced it to get headlines for themselves that they’re willing to help while putting all the risk to the U.S.”

International relations scholars pay close attention to the relationship between China and Russia, particularly China's reluctance to condemn Russian actions in Ukraine. China's international relations doctrine focuses on maintaining territorial sovereignty, a tenet violated in Russia's Ukraine attack. China and Russia have a clear interest in allying across various issues, from technical standards to pushing back against human rights sanctions from Western democracies. However, they are unlikely – and not credible - partners in the era still mired in the politics of COVID-19.

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser chats with Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former vice-chairman of the Paulson Institute, and (during the second George W. Bush administration), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs under Condoleezza Rice. Evan offers a very compelling analysis of the difficult position that Beijing now finds itself in after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — caught on the horns of a dilemma and unable to resolve conflicting commitments to, on the one hand, territorial sovereignty and, on the other, opposition to American unipolar hegemony.

Over the past few days, observers have begun to forecast the results of Western sanctions on the Russian economy. In short, we are likely watching the collapse of Russia’s economic system. The savage nature of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has drawn much of the media oxygen, but the severity of a possible collapse should put Western observers on alert. Crises on this scale produce profound societal volatility and often result in spillovers that few see coming.

uesday’s decision by the United States to ban imports of oil and natural gas from Russia represents the latest ratcheting of sanctions designed to pressure and punish Vladimir Putin for his country’s military assault on neighboring Ukraine. Allies of Ukraine have continued using diplomatic tools to isolate Russia economically and politically in an effort to stop the violence. Though they have supplied weapons and technology to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion, the U.S. and other nations have not granted Ukraine’s plea to provide a secure air space, which would likely spark direct military confrontation between Russia and the West. To find out why and to explore what might come next, UVA Today checked in with UVA Vice President for Global Affairs Stephen Mull, former acting undersecretary for political affairs at the U.S. Department of State and former U.S. ambassador to Poland and to Lithuania.

Continuing our conversation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine I speak with UVA scholars John Owen and Barbara Perry