RUSSIA'S AGGRESSION AGAINST UKRAINE: SELECTED COMMENTARY

Excerpt from a speech at the Fourth Summit of the Crimea Platform in Kyiv, alongside First Lady Olena Zelenska and Mustafa Dzhemilev, September 2024. 

In the Los Angeles Times, January 2024: "Maksym Butkevych is sacrificing everything for the ideals of freedom and equality that America cherishes. Johnson and his Republicans should be calling for his release and doing everything in their power to aid his people and enable their victory." 

At the European Parliament Liaison Office in London, December 2023: Crimea is the ground zero of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Kyiv is now deoccupying the peninsula - but this striking fact is rarely reported in mainstream media in the West.

For Politico, January 2023: "Half-measures and short-sighted compromises are a recipe for endless war against a state bent on savage imperialist conquest. The difficult path to lasting peace is Ukraine’s de-occupation of Crimea and an unmistakable defeat of Russian aggression."

In a wide-ranging interview with Anastasia Ringis in Ukrainska pravda on 18 October 2023 (in Ukrainian), Rory Finnin discusses Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar solidarity and the future of a free, deoccupied Crimea.

In this video produced by the University of Cambridge on 24 February 2023, Rory Finnin confronts the reality of nine years of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine and calls on communities in the West to rally around the example of the resilience of the people of Ukraine.

In the Annual Liberation Lecture at the University of Cambridge on 17 November 2022, Rory Finnin explores centuries of history and culture to excavate the concept of volia, or defiant freedom, at the heart of Ukraine's national identity.

At the London School of Economics, October 2022: Russia's war against Ukraine is genocidal, and at its heart is longstanding "Russian colonialist aggression against Ukraine, a former colony" and a desire for "a conquest of language, culture, and even consciousness itself."

For the The Atlantic, May 2022: "Crimean Tatars have long helped shape Ukraine’s sense of self as a vibrant multiethnic, multiconfessional, multilingual place."

For The Conversation, April 2022, with international lawyer Thomas Grant: "This collusion of word and deed, demonstrating an 'intent to destroy' the Ukrainian nation 'in whole or in part,' should leave no doubt that Russia aims at genocide in Ukraine. Hopes for diplomatic solutions and political compromises must confront this reality."

For Politico, March 2022, with Jon Roozenbeek: "Over the months ahead, the cause of peace and security will depend in part on our ability to retain moral and intellectual clarity amid the thickening fog of an information war."

At an emergency briefing organised by the Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics on 28 February 2022, Rory Finnin highlighted Ukraine's "anti-colonial backbone", explaining that "even if Russian forces take cities for an extended period of time, it will be difficult to hold them. Ukrainians will take them back."

In the Sunday Times on 27 February: 2022: "The British public needs to rally together and prepare to make everyday sacrifices for Ukraine… The very idea of our freedom is at stake now.”

Since 24 February 2022, Rory Finnin has appeared frequently on news broadcasts around the world to explain the ideas at the heart of Ukraine's national identity and to call for ambitious financial and military support of Ukraine.

In the weeks before Russia's full-fledged invasion, Rory Finnin emphasised the moral and practical reasons for our urgent support of Ukraine.

For Politico, on 12 February 2022: "In menacing Ukraine’s borders, Putin is not only betting that the West doesn’t care about Ukraine. He is also betting that the West doesn’t know or even see Ukraine. Our ignorance feeds his aggression."

For The Conversation, in 2015, with international lawyer Thomas Grant: "We need to stop watering down reports with euphemism and understatement. We need to call this what it is: a war of self-defence against an international aggressor."

For the Huffington Post, April 2015: "There has been a lot of debate in the Western press over whether to supply Ukraine with defensive arms. How to make sense of all the editorialising? Which op-eds and columns should one take seriously? Consider the following questions."

For the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, April 2015: "A serious and continued escalation of this war is likely, which is why more focused, prospective and concerted assistance to Ukraine is needed right now."

In the Kyiv Post, September 2014: "The Kremlin is not only subjecting the Crimean Tatars to new threats and backdoor deportations. The Kremlin is showing an implicit disdain for, and testing the limits of, a tradition of Muslim non-violence and political moderation that the world needs to support and understand today."

On CNN, August 2014: "The West has often discounted Ukraine's national identity, reducing Ukraine to pro-Russian and pro-EU halves. This is a fiction."

On Al Jazeera, March 2014: "If we're under the assumption that [eastern Ukraine] will welcome Russian troops... we will be sorely mistaken. We will have a bloody, very real war on our hands."

On Al Jazeera, March 2014, responding to the appearance of Russian troops in Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea: "It's an absurdity in an unfolding nightmare of absurdities. Russia has invaded sovereign, independent Ukraine in clear and unabashed contravention of international law. It's as simple as that."

For the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, in March 2014: "If Russia invades beyond Crimea, Ukrainians will defend themselves. And Europe will be witness to a war between its largest countries, with dire economic and human costs for us all."