Rethinking Peace and Victory in Light of Russian Aggression in Ukraine

Abstract

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to a crisis in the field of peacebuilding, and among scholars of peace and conflict. As an interstate war of aggression, Russia's war in Ukraine is highly atypical for our times, which raises questions about whether the standard tools of peacebuilding, and established approaches to the study of peace, are applicable. This special issue aims to grapple with these questions from within the field of peace and conflict studies, in particular, to explore what avenues for negotiation, mediation, and peacebuilding there might be in light of Russian aggression against Ukraine. In this introduction, we highlight the need for the field of peace and conflict studies to engage critically with these challenges. We introduce and summarize the different contributions by Ukrainian and foreign scholars to this special issue, before concluding with a number of questions for the broader field of peacebuilding beyond Ukraine.