It is no secret that the time of martial law in Ukraine has forced the authorities in Kyiv to make unpopular decisions. One of the most outrageous is certainly the one regarding the ban on leaving the country of men of recruiting age. Students of international universities are a particularly problematic subcategory in this regard.

An interview with Yevhen Mahda, a Ukrainian political analyst and the Executive Director of the Institute of World Policy, a think-tank based in Kyiv. Interviewer: Tomasz Lachowski

Zbigniew Brzezinski's death this year is a huge loss to me and my wife. He was America's greatest strategic thinker and had a significant impact on my professional life, as did many other Polish and Polish-Americans throughout the last 40 years or so. I have visited Poland frequently since the 1970s. As an American teacher and scholar on Central and Eastern Europe, I found it useful to meet not only academics but politicians as well. Although I do not speak Polish, I could pronounce most of the names fairly well; the name of Janusz Onyszkiewicz was among the more difficult ones. My Polish encounters were largely limited to those who spoke English. The irresistible Adam Michnik was an exception: our conversations needed an interpreter. If I may say so, our friendship has managed to develop nevertheless. I try to see him every time I am in Warsaw, most recently in the autumn of 2016.