Today’s episode examines how Russian agents and local militants exploited ambiguity, weak state capacity, and fragmented local authority to transform unrest in the Donbas into an armed insurgency in 2014. At its core, it is a story about how a small group of armed actors can seize a city—and how local institutions, political legitimacy, and civil society can stop them. Dr. Celeste Wallander and Dr. Serhiy Kudelia are the guests. Summary Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, but the war began eight years earlier with the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of conflict in the Donbas. Wallander and Kudelia trace how Russian operatives converted genuine but diffuse political discontent into an armed insurgency, why militants seized some cities but failed in others, and how confusion over how to respond gave militants time to consolidate control. Their discussion traces Ukraine’s transformation from a state hampered in 2014 by fractured ties between Kyiv and local administrators and unprepared security forces to one capable of mounting a determined resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022—a transformation enabled by stronger military capacity, municipal leadership, democratic legitimacy, and civil society. They also revisit the debate over US military assistance, the Minsk process, and what outside partners can realistically accomplish when crises escalate faster than relationships, training, and logistics can be built. Dr. Celeste A. Wallander is the executive director of Penn Washington, the University of Pennsylvania’s program in Washington, D.C. From 2022 to 2025, she served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. She previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia on the National Security Council from 2013 to 2017 and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2009 to 2012. She has also served as president and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Foundation and held positions at American University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Serhiy Kudelia is a professor of political science at Baylor University. His research focuses on the onset and dynamics of insurgencies and civil wars, political regimes and regime change, and political institutions, with a geographic emphasis on Ukraine, Russia, and the former Soviet Union. He is the author of Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia’s War on Ukraine (Oxford University Press, 2025), a micro-level study based on more than one hundred interviews with participants and observers of the conflict. The book conducts a meticulous comparison of mobilization dynamics in over a dozen towns of Donbas as well as in two major cities outside of it: Kharkiv and Odesa. It examines how Russian intervention, local elites, militants, municipal officials, and civic resistance produced sharply different outcomes. The book received the American Association for Ukrainian Studies’ 2026 Book Prize. Alexandra Chinchilla is the host for this episode. Please reach out to her with any questions about the episode or IWI. The Irregular Warfare Podcast is a production of the Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI). We are a team of volunteers dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. IWI generates written and audio content, coordinates events for the IW community, and hosts critical thinkers in the field of irregular warfare as IWI fellows. You can follow and engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for (always free!) access to our written content, upcoming community events, and other resources. All views expressed in this episode are the personal views of the participants and do not represent those of any government agency or of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. Intro music: “Unsilenced” by Ketsa Outro music: “Launch” by Ketsa
