Ukrainian Studies Seminar Series

Time: 26 March 2026, 15.00-17.00

Venue: Room 10, Metsätalo 3rd floor, (Unioninkatu 40), or online

Registration: by 24 March 2026 

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has done more than alter the balance of power in Europe. It has produced new actors, new hierarchies, and new forms of political subjectivity. The war is fundamentally changing not only Ukraine’s international position but the terms on which the EU, the US, and Europe’s smaller states understand and exercise their agency in security affairs.

This seminar looks at how war reconstitutes international agency and how the experience of war transforms the very terms on which states act, are recognized, and relate to one another. Three presentations explore this question from different angles: the theoretical and structural dimensions of war’s constitutive effects on agency, the changing agency of small states in security crises, and the reflection of reconfiguration of international system.

We welcome researchers from the University of Helsinki and other institutions to participate in the seminar either online or in person.

Join us for a seminar led by Dr. Yuliia Kurnyshova (Aleksanteri Institute), who will be joined by Professor Andrey Makarychev (University of Tartu) and Associate Professor Matti Puranen (National Defence University of Finland).

Questions for discussion:

• How does war constitute international agency?
• What structural asymmetries shape the relationship between Ukraine's agency and its partners' commitments?
• How do hierarchical relationships between partners shape and constrain the agency that war produces?