Gwendolyn Sasse is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. Her research focuses on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, EU enlargement, and comparative democratization.
Sasse is the director of the newly founded Centre for East European Research and International Studies (Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien, ZOiS) in Berlin.
She is also professor of comparative politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations and the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies at the University of Oxford, where she also works on ethnic conflict, minority issues, migration, and diaspora politics.
Prior to her 2007 arrival in Oxford, Sasse was a senior lecturer in the European Institute and the Department of Government at the London School of Economics.
Her most recent books include Russia's War Against Ukraine (Polity, 2023), The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict (Harvard University Press, 2007), which won the Alexander Nove Prize awarded by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies; Europeanization and Regionalization in the EU’s Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe: the Myth of Conditionality (Palgrave, 2004; co-authored with James Hughes and Claire Gordon); and Ethnicity and Territory in the Former Soviet Union: Regions in Conflict (Frank Cass, 2001; co-edited with James Hughes). She has also published extensively in academic journals.
Sasse is a member of the Advisory Council of the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany. She comments regularly on East European politics, in particular Ukraine, in U.S., British, and European media outlets.
Elections in East Germany reveal how Russia’s war on Ukraine can be exploited for political gain. Rising domestic pressures fueled by societal discontent are becoming a risk for collective Western support for Kyiv.
This week’s political conferences will highlight Ukraine’s threefold challenge of wartime resilience, recovery, and EU accession. Kyiv’s partners must adjust to thinking in all three dimensions simultaneously.
The release of U.S. aid to Ukraine is one of many steps necessary to contain Russian aggression. Western leaders must remind publics what is at stake and think ahead to avoid delays at every turn.
Gloomy speeches at the Munich Security Conference reflect the general mood two years into Russia’s war on Ukraine. Rather than drawing conclusions and analogies that benefit the Kremlin, the West should bolster support for Kyiv.
Ukrainians’ continued trust in President Zelensky and the armed forces suggests Kyiv can navigate domestic political turbulence. But Ukraine’s military success hinges on stronger European support.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has been characterized by diverging time horizons and expectations. At this critical juncture, European governments should increase military assistance to Ukraine.
War in the Middle East and U.S. domestic politics risk weakening Western support to Ukraine. The EU must remember the stakes in Russia’s war and be ready to step up.
In February 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves across Europe, prompting EU member states to stand united and take unprecedented political and financial measures to constrain the Kremlin.
All the actors supporting Ukraine need to work together now to establish a Euro-Atlantic strategy. Waiting for the war to end is not an option.
One year after the latest stage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, there is still no sign of an end to the war. Despite the unanimity in supporting Kyiv in both Europe and the United States, the political consensus on stepping up assistance is not solid enough.
