Matt Slater- Topic Question: Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine

Source 1: Scholarly Article

Dibb, Paul. “Why Did Putin Decide to Attack Ukraine?” The Geopolitical Implications of Russia’s
Invasion of Ukraine, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2022, pp. 6–10. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep42791.4. Accessed 05 Mar. 2023.
1. Relevancy: ASPI is an independent, non-partisan think-tank based in Australia. The author
is, according to his biography, "Paul Dibb is Emeritus Professor of strategic studies and
Chairman of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in the College of Asia and the Pacific at
The Australian National University. He was Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre
from 1991 to 2003." Further, the article is directly what my research topic is about.

2. Accuracy: While there is some "western-world" bias, the article is free of errors and does a
good job examining the historical aspects of the collapse of the USSR and the split in
worldpower that came about because of it. Australia is a treaty-bound ally of the United States,
but is not a member of NATO, so there is some distancing because of that as well.
3. Currency: The article was written on September 1st of 2022, so it is only 6 months old. While
the tactical situation in Ukraine may be different than it was, the strategic and political state of
affairs in Russia remain largely unchanged.
4. Authority: The author is an expert in his field, and again, Australia is not a member of NATO,
so I feel that eliminates some potential bias.
5. Purpose: This article helps to explain historical and social reasons that were the prelude to
the Russian invasion.
6. Rating: I give this article a 5 out of 5, as being it directly helps to answer my research
question, and does so in great detail.
Source 2: Scholarly Article
Ellen Munroe, Anastasiia Nosach, Moisés Pedrozo, Eleonora Guarnieri, Juan Felipe Riaño, Ana
Tur-Prats, Felipe Valencia Caicedo, "The Legacies of War for Ukraine", Economic Policy, 2023;
eiad001, https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eiad001 Accessed 11Mar. 2023
1. Relevancy: ASPI is an independent, non-partisan think-tank based in Australia. The author
is, according to his biography, "Paul Dibb is Emeritus Professor of strategic studies and
Chairman of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in the College of Asia and the Pacific at
The Australian National University. He was Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre
from 1991 to 2003." Further, the article is directly what my research topic is about.
1. Relevancy: This article goes into detail using historical references as to what the end of the
conflict might look like. It also has some details as to the historical reasonings behind the
invasion, this more looks to the end of the conflict and after rather than how it started.
2. Accuracy: This article is well written and obviously well-researched with a number of authors
of varying backgrounds from Canada and the United States
3. Currency: This was written on January 21, 2023, and is less than 3 months old, so it is very
current, as far as scholarly articles go.
4. Authority: Again, this was written by a variety of academic authors with varying backgrounds
and expertise.
5. Purpose: The article goes into more about how the war might end and what the political and
social landscape would look like after that happens, rather than how the war actually started.
While it is in itself a very interesting article, I'm not sure that it would help my thesis question of
why Russia launched their invasion.
6. Rating: I give this article a 3 out of 5 for the overall rating. While there is a lot of good
information in this, it really doesn't overall pertain directly to my topic.
Source 3: Website
Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, George Barros, and Mason Clark
“Ukraine Conflict Updates,” Institute for the Study of War, 2023,
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
1. Relevancy: This website gives a daily update of the ground situation in Ukraine, but it also
focuses on the information battlefield, and does a great job of detailing an overall view of the
Russian Invasion using open-source intelligence (bloggers, government press releases, social
media posts, etc). For my topic this would be a valuable resource.
2. Accuracy: While this is a US-based think-tank, they do try to present the information with as
little bias as possible, and regularly use information from Russian sources, as well as NATO,
Ukrainian, and civilian sources. They are regularly cited by multiple news sources as well.
3. Currency: This website is updated daily with any changes and updates on the ground
situation, but also the political situations as well.
4. Authority: According to their website, they are, "ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy
research organization." As stated above, they are regularly sited by other news outlets and even
government officials.
6. Rating: I give this website a 4 out of 5 on the rating scale. While it specifically updates the
ground situation daily, it also includes any changes in the political realm as well, and includes
updates as to the why and not just the how.
Source 4: Website
Kirby, Paul. “Has Putin's War Failed and What Does Russia Want from Ukraine?” BBC News,
24 Feb, 2023.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589
1. Relevancy: This news article has some fairly good historical data as to reasons why Russia
invaded, but is more targeted towards Russia's failures and more of what Putin may be looking
at now, rather than why the initial invasion was launched in the first place.
2. Accuracy: This seems to be a well-written article, and BBC is a very well-known and
respected news source, so I'd say the accuracy on this fairly high. I do feel there is some
western bias involved, however.
3. Currency: The article was written on February 24th of this year, the one-year anniversary of
the invasion. It is less than three weeks old, and not much has changed politically or tactically
in the meantime. This is a current source.
4. Authority: Again, the BBC is a well-respected news source, but even those get things wrong
from time to time. However, this article seems to jive with all other sources I've read, so I would
say the authority is good, and the article is as accurate as possible.
6. Rating: I give this article a 3. While it is timely and accurate, it doesn't really elaborate in
great detail on why the invasion was launched. Again, it goes into more detail as to what is
going wrong and what has changed, not so much on why it was originally started, although that
is covered briefly.
Source 5: Book
Harding, Luke. Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for
Survival. Amazon; Vintage Publishing, 2022. ebook.
1. Relevancy: The author was a reporter who spent time not only in Ukraine, and was present at
the initial invasion, but also spent time in Russia, and has a good grasp of both countries
political and social situations. He also does a good job explaining the 2014 invasion of Crimea
and the events that led up to the February 2022 incursion. I think this book is very relevant to
my subject.
2. Accuracy: Again, the western bias in this may be subjective, but again, the author has spent
time in both Ukraine and Russia, and I feel that he does a good job of trying to be balanced.
3. Currency: The book was published November 29, 2022, and the situation in Ukraine remains
relatively the same as it was then. As far as a book, this is very current to the situation.
4. Authority: The author has written numerous books on other current events, and is a New York
Times best selling author. Further, the author was in Kyiv the morning the Russian invasion
started, and reportedly has a working relationship with Ukraine's President Zelensky and other
cabinet members of the UKR government.
6. Rating: I'm going to rate this book a 5 out of 5 due to the deep knowledge the author has of
both Ukraine and Russia, as well as the fact that he was an eye-witness to the events on the
morning of February 24th, 2022.
Source 6: Social Media (Twitter)
Russian Embassy in USA, "Anatoly Antonov: USA (American Flag symbol) is trying to punish
us for such an unheard-of audacity as defending the fundamental interests of national
security. ! (sic) The US believing in its own impunity, does not disdain anything to keep its
elusive geo-economic dominance." 3-10-2023; 7pmEST.
1. Relevancy: This tweet, I feel, is relevant due to the fact that it really extolls the amount of
disinformation and what-aboutism that is coming from official Russian agencies, in this case the
Russian Embassy in the US. Further, this was has been called the Tik-Tok War, due to the
large amount of information and misinformation about it going out over social media.
2. Accuracy: Clearly this tweet is indicative of Russian bias towards the US in particular, and
NATO and Ukraine in general.
3. Currency: This was tweeted out yesterday, so it is very current.
4. Authority: This tweet comes from the Russian government, which is why I included it. While
we don't know who the author is, it is guaranteed that it went out on behalf of the Russian
government and is approved by them.
6. Rating: I give this tweet specifically a 3, because while it doesn't necessarily deal with the
causes of the initial invasion, it does demonstrate that the information being given out by the
Russian government is vastly different than what is heard in the US/western media. I will dig
further into official Russian tweets and other social media in the future of this assignment.