When did Russia’s war against Ukraine begin? Historian Michael Kimmage, founding director of the independent Kennan Institute, argues that the answer depends on where you start: the 1654 Pereiaslav agreement that bound Cossack Ukraine to Muscovy, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the invasion of Crimea in 2014, or the Kremlin’s decisions in 2021. Each starting point implies a different account of the war’s causes and a different view of what lasting peace would require.

Join us for a Buffett Conversation in which Kimmage traces the war’s origins and considers the terms for a sustainable peace. The discussion will be moderated by Russian political analyst Maria Lipman, Distinguished Visiting Professor in International Studies at Northwestern University.

From 2014 to 2016, Kimmage served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He is the author of several books, including Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability (Oxford University Press, 2024; paperback available starting 2027). He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Kimmage is the founding director of an independent Kennan Institute. With the help of diplomat George F. Kennan, the Kennan Institute was founded in 1974 at the Woodrow Wilson Center, from which it separated in 2025. The Kennan Institute has for five decades been a leading center for research on Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia.

Doors will open at 12:00 p.m., and lunch will begin at 12:15 p.m.

Please note that 720 University Place is not an ADA-accessible space. Increasing physical access to buildings and facilities is a goal of the University, but not all buildings and venues have been updated.

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