On Feb. 5, Lucian Kim spoke about his new book, “Putin’s Revenge: Why Russia Invaded Ukraine” in the Speaker’s Corner of Falvey Library. This event was co-hosted by the Russian Area Studies Program and the Political Science Department. Published in December of 2024, Kim’s book details his account on Russia’s path to war as a journalist in the area for several years.
Introducing the speaker was Dr. Mark Schrad, Director of the Russian Area Studies Program and a political science professor at Villanova.
“Lucian is an independent journalist, has been for a number of years, covering Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Russia,” Schrad said.
Schrad also said that during his time on the ground in Europe, Kim worked for a variety of news companies, including Bloomberg, NPR and the Christian Science Monitor. It was also illustrated that Kim has since returned to the U.S. working in the Wilson Center in Washington D.C.
Schrad described Kim’s prior visit to Villanova.
“We’ve established quite a nice relationship with Lucian,” Schrad said. “We happened to invite him in 2022, when Russia was amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, and people weren’t quite sure as to what would happen, and then obviously Russia invades Ukraine in February 2022…Everybody was shell-shocked, everyone was looking for direction, and so we did sort of an online presentation and he kind of gave us some insights into contextualizing what we were seeing…”
Kim began his talk discussing his personal reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“I was maybe also personally shocked because I had spent so much time covering not only Ukraine but also Russia,” Kim said.
Kim then went into greater specifics about the events that he covered.
“[I saw] Russia degenerate from a free-wheeling, anything-goes society in the early 2000s, when Vladimir Putin took over, to an iron-fisted dictatorship,” Kim said.
Having significant knowledge of Russia and Ukraine, and wanting to do something about this war, Kim knew that what he could contribute was “something on the background. How did we get to this insane moment…”
Kim also described that he had started this book in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea, but that his book editor at the time eventually got back to him stating global interest was not there. Kim further illustrated that this was representative of a larger phenomenon Kim refers to as “Ukraine Fatigue,” the challenge for Ukraine to maintain global interest over longer periods of time.
Kim then discussed the overall structure of his book. He described that his book started in 2004 on the eve of the Orange Revolution, which he presented as “probably one of the moments where the outside world took note of Ukraine after many years.” This was a result of a rigged election in Ukraine between a Western-affiliated candidate and a more Russian-leaning candidate. To Kim, this was especially moving because it had proved that Ukrainians had chosen to move their country in a more western direction.
Kim then moved on, first illustrating his chapter the Russian military invasion in Georgia in 2008, his chapter on events inside Russia during 2011 and then describing the three chapters he dedicated to Crimea.
Kim discussed the popular protester, Alexi Navalny, whom he spent another chapter describing. Kim described his ability to adapt as a communicator, going to different platforms to critique the government. Navalny, Kim emphasized, is seen differently in different places, some Ukrainians taking a more careful approach as he was a Russian nationalist.
Kim also devoted one chapter to the rise of Vladimir Zelensky and his relations with President Donald Trump. The last two chapters of this book focus on the arrival of the Biden administration and his initial disinterest in Ukraine at the beginning of his term.
“And when Joe Biden became president, there was a lot of hope in Ukraine because Joe Biden had been Obama’s point man on Ukraine… so there was an expectation that Joe Biden would understand their plight, and he was completely absent,” Kim said.
After discussing the outline of his book, Kim turned to some of what he thought of as the most important drivers for this conflict. These included Russia’s history of imperialism, Putin’s autocracy, Bush’s act of opening the doors of NATO to Ukraine (angering Russians), along with strong emotional and historical ties between Russia and Ukraine.
Kim then opened the floor for questions, discussing more about how this conflict between Russia and Ukraine has persisted since 2014 as “one war” rather than two separate wars, along with a deeper dive into the differing opinions of Alexi Navalny.
