UBalt Leaders Speak Out on Conflict in Ukraine
February 27, 2022
Contact: Office of Advancement and External Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Members of The University of Baltimore community, including professors and President Kurt L. Schmoke, are speaking out on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Writing in The Hill, Merrick School of Business Associate Professor David Lingelbach says the war is being furthered by Russia's oligarchy and its economic power, as well as Vladimir Putin's military.
"I see Putin as an oligarch, one of an expanding group of economic and political actors that are shaping our increasingly uncertain world. And he is coming into his own now," Lingelbach writes.
Prof. Lingelbach, who spent several years in the 1990s as president of Bank of America-Russia and is writing a book about the oligarchs, says they "aim to create and exploit dynamic, unfolding situations that open more doors for them."
"What Putin has done for himself by invading Ukraine is to open doors, not least as a leader of the emerging post-rules international order," Lingelbach writes.
University of Baltimore School of Law Professor and Center for International and Comparative Law Director Mortimer Sellers tells WBAL-TV that Russia's actions represent a "fundamental threat to world peace."
"You cannot seize territories by force," Prof. Sellers says. "Stable borders in the world are the main basis of world peace."
Ivan Sascha Sheehan, associate professor and executive director of the School of Public and International Affairs, writes in The National Interest that the effectiveness of sanctions to end the violence depends on international solidarity.
"There's no excuse for the United States, United Kingdom, or EU to hold back against Russia's nation-state lackeys or the Kremlin," Prof. Sheehan writes. "While they will claim that there are genuine reasons for refusing to cut off these financial flows, no credible excuses exist. Indeed, not all post-Soviet states are so intoxicated; some are in fact demonstrating remarkable sobriety."
UBalt President Schmoke issued a public statement on the war in Ukraine:
"The Russian invasion of Ukraine is both shocking and disheartening. Many in our community feel the stress of this attack in a personal way. For decades, Baltimore and Odessa have been designated 'Sister Cities' through an international twin city program. ... Let us keep the citizens of Ukraine in our thoughts and prayers and hope that peace and freedom prevail in that nation."
Read Prof. Lingelbach's opinion pieces in The Hill, from Feb. 26 and Feb. 3.
Read President Schmoke's statement on Facebook.
Watch the WBAL-TV interview with Prof. Sellers.
Read Prof. Sheehan's op-ed in The National Interest.