Editors’ Introduction

The European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (EASU) is a nongovernmental organization that promotes and advances science and scholarship within Ukraine and throughout the world. It collaborates with numerous publications and research institutes. The academy regularly conducts a number of conferences each year on topics that advance scientific thinking and research. On June 23, 2022, I was invited by an EASU conference team member to participate in an upcoming 5-day conference in Ukraine in July entitled “Unknown Wars.” My panel would be devoted to addressing such issues as what was going on in the world right now, the prognosis, and what might happen next. Other panels were organized along the same theme as my panel. Because of the current situation in Ukraine, the conference would take place online and not broadcast live on social media. Clearly, there was a legitimate concern that the latter might have been used by the enemies of Ukraine to wage disinformation warfare. All participants in the conference would be from the EASU community or personally invited by a conference member as I was.

On July 17, 2022, addressing the raison d'être for my panel I presented my thoughts on what I believe to be a new face of Russian terrorism vis-à-vis Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s February 24, 2022, escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Others on my panel read their papers and entered into the usual conference banter and dialog academic participants are wont to do. The presentations and interactions gave no clue that the conference was originating from inside Ukraine where Putin was ferociously attacking schools in Zhytomyr, apartments in Mariupol, and shopping malls in Kyiv. I was amazed at the resiliency of the EASU staff and the many conference participants who were physically in Ukraine. Their performance in the face of such adversity was downright remarkable. It says volumes about the resolve of the Ukrainian populace and the manner in which they have responded to this disturbing situation, to say the least!

It also must be said that after the February 24, 2022, escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014, the EASU did not abandon its academic mission but rather expanded it. How so, you might ask. It set out to support scholars, journalists, and independent correspondents continue their work as Putin’s missiles held no target sacrosanct. The EASU provided scholars secure places to live while they continued their academic activities. Protective equipment were supplied to war correspondents so they could continue functioning. Elderly academics were also supported by the EASU. Most recently the EASU obtained a working ambulance through donations to support its efforts within the academic community in Ukraine.

As an academic involved in the study of terrorism and someone who has dealt directly with its horrific consequences, I was impressed by the work of the EASU in bringing a semblance of normalcy to the academic community within Ukraine during such turbulent times. I was equally impressed by the body of knowledge presented by the community of Ukrainian scholars and their fellow EASU academicians displayed during the 5-day conference. To be sure, academics within the United States are not at all that familiar with the work of the EASU academicians that study or specialize in the politics of Eastern Europe and northern Asia. As someone who spent many years deeply involved with the Republic of Poland, I am well aware of the lack of interest that events within central Europe let alone Eastern Europe generate within the academic community in the United States. To address this paucity and present the work of those directly impacted by Russian aggression, I turned to Kanykei Tursunbaeva, journalist and coordinator of the EASU conferences’ organizing team to identify EASU-affiliated scholars that could shed light on the current situation in Ukraine.

The results of her labor were five articles on the current situation in Ukraine. Four of the articles are penned by scholars living in Ukraine and directly experiencing firsthand the consequences of war. Thanks to the extraordinary translation skills of Kanykei, we offer the following four articles. To begin, Oleg Maltsev and Iryna Lopatiuk tackle defining a war crime within the context of Russian aggression. Then in his own work, Maltsev asks if Ukraine has the right join the European Union. Maxim Lepskiy and Nataliia Lepska follow by discussing the war and its challenge to NATO and Vitalii Lunov, et al., take a deep dive into the impact of Russian aggression on the psychological health of Ukrainian youth. Our issue concludes with the work of Andrew Hoskins and Pavel Shchelin who ruminate about the consequences of a war fought in plain sight.

To be sure, the genesis for this issue of the American Behavioral Scientist stems from my participation in the EASU’s “Unknown Wars” conference. It reminded me of something I already knew that there was a dearth of knowledge of all things related to Eastern Europe and Ukraine. And that was especially true of the indigenous scholarship generated from the region. The hope is that our look into an issue that can impact the entire world will be better understood by looking at it through for the most part Ukrainian eyes. It is further hoped that we have piqued the reader’s interest and can declare “Mission Accomplished.”