“He was predicting chaos and that people would scatter,“ she said. ”This is not occurring.”
Buckley stressed the key role Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is playing to rally his people to fight the Russian forces.
“You’ve seen the emergence of an enormously charismatic leader in Zelensky,“ she said. ”Him staying and working with the troops and being in Kyiv, for now, has been tremendous in terms of solidifying unity, establishing an idea of patriotism, and really bringing Ukrainians together.”
But the professor warned that this solidarity could wane when human suffering increases as Putin escalates the war.
“We are at a precipice right now in terms of social services in, particularly, central and eastern Ukraine,“ Buckley said. ”And that, as that develops ... may start to diminish the idea of social solidarity and patriotism as we see more big cities go without water, without health care, without basic social services.”
In her assessment of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Buckley said Lavrov is not ready to deescalate his country’s military action.
“I don’t see on the Russian side any sort of motivation for a ceasefire anytime soon,” she said. “Lavrov’s behavior in [the] face of clear human war crimes has been quite surprising, even for Sergei Lavrov, and so a ceasefire, unfortunately, is not on the table at present.”
Buckley said she thinks it will be difficult to hold Putin and his administration accountable for war crimes, especially if they capture Kyiv.
Since the start of the conflict, over 2.8 million people have fled Ukraine into neighboring countries including Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Russia, and others, according to the International Organization for Migration at the United Nations.