Dr. Tracy Busch presented information about the ongoing war with Russia and Ukraine on Thursday.
The presentation was part of the Humanities Colloquium. Busch is a history professor and gave information about both sides of the war at the presentation to help students understand how both sides see one another.
The war has been happening since 2014, however an escalation happened on Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia began to invade Ukraine. Busch explained the thoughts she had had that February.
“I didn’t think that they were actually going to do a full-scale invasion,” Busch said. “I was predicting that they were going to use the People’s Republic that they control to gain access. You know, I thought they were going to just finally connect those and call it good. I didn’t think they would take the risk that they took by invading credit, but they did.”
Busch went on to explain that the months following the attack on Ukraine. Ukraine was able to push back to get more of their territory back.
While visiting Ukraine, her husband brought back a piece of a bomb that had went off in the garden of his Ukrainian interpreter. While she did not bring it to the presentation, Busch included a picture on her slides to show what the shrapnel looked like to the audience.
During the presentation, Busch also wanted to explain the differences that the two sides had in response to the breakout of the war.
“The Russians like to deny early on in particular that anybody was dying,” Busch said. “They don’t even call it a war. They would cremate the bodies of the soldiers a mobile crematory so that nobody would know families would not know what happened to them. Whereas, you know, looking at East versus West here with Ukraine in response to Russian aggression is they make it front and center that these are people and they are dying in this unprovoked war.”
Ferris Alumnus Adam Langworthy was in the audience. He helped answer Busch’s question on one of the events that happened.
“There was an island, and there’s only like 13 Ukrainian soldiers on there,” Langworthy said. “And the Russians at the Black Seas Fleet surrounding it, and they ordered them to surrender and that was the guy’s response. Initially, people thought they all died to a man, but it turns out they were taken prisoner, but I think a lot of them have been released at this point in prisoner exchange.”
Busch went on to say that Langworthy was correct and that this was how Ukraine had an interaction with Russia.
Busch ended her presentation by letting the audience know that her husband will be presenting on Nov. 28 about what was happening in Ukraine, as he was there last August.