First Wednesday: The Battle for the Future of Ukraine

As the build-up of Russian forces in Crimea continues, tensions are mounting in Ukraine. With the country in a period of great uncertainty, its fate part of a wider strategic battle between the West and Russia, we will be looking at what the future holds for 45 million Ukrainians.

As some in the country look east and others look west, how will the new Ukraine accommodate these differing alliances?

Chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4′s Broadcasting House.

The panel:

Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and Slate. She is author of Gulag: A History and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56. She also directs the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and commentator. He is professor of European Studies at University of Oxford and has written extensively about the recent history and politics of Europe.

Olexiy Solohubenko is news and deployments editor at BBC Global News. From 1996 to 2003, he was head of the Ukrainian Service which, as the first recruit from Ukraine, he helped to set up when he joined BBC World Service in 1992.

Richard Sakwa is professor of Russian and European Politics and head of the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. He is author of Putin and the Oligarch: The Khodorkovsky-Yukos Affair, The Crisis of Russian Democracy and Putin: Russia’s Choice amongst others.

Photograph: Getty Images