Seven Years of War in Ukraine’s Donbas: Revisiting Conflict Escalation and Its Causes

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The war in eastern Ukraine’s Donets Basin (Donbas) is now entering its eighth year. Until recently, it seemed that the situation was slowly turning into a frozen conflict. Since early April, however, reports of new violence along the contact line accompanied by large-scale Russian troop movements towards the Ukrainian border and occupied Crimea have raised fears of a new escalation. At the same time, the academic debate whether the war in the Donbas is primarily a domestic Ukrainian phenomenon or primarily a Russian invasion continues. Jakob Hauter, PhD candidate at SSEES, will speak about the current state of this debate and his own contribution to it. To introduce the topic, he will first present a volume of academic articles that he edited and that is scheduled for publication on 20 April. He will then present the state of his own PhD research on the relationship between domestic and external causes of the conflict.

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