Why colonialism is more complicated than you think - with Botakoz Kassymbekova

What types of colonialism can we identify — and which of them are playing out in Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other countries?

This conversation is not purely academic. It helps us better understand what's happening today — and what might happen tomorrow. Russian colonial and imperial practices sometimes resemble those of other empires — but at other times, they differ significantly. Russia often masks its imperial violence with nationalist mythology. It's important to reveal why that mythology is misleading — and dangerous.

• Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.
• Our guest today is Botakoz Kassymbekova, a renowned scholar of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She is currently Professor of Eastern European History at the University of Zurich and specializes in Soviet history, Stalinism and post-Stalinism, and Russian imperial practices. She holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin.

Explaining Ukraine is produced by UkraineWorld, an English-language media project about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

This episode is created in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute, the country's leading cultural diplomacy institution.

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