Guest lecturer Arne Westad joins Timothy Snyder's Yale course on Ukrainian history to compare Russian imperialism with other empires of recent centuries. Westad situates Russia's imperial project alongside British, French, and other colonial systems, asking what makes Russian expansion distinct and what it shares with familiar patterns of conquest and rule. The lecture fits into Snyder's broader course, which uses Ukraine's history to examine how modern nations form, why Ukraine's existence has been contested by neighboring powers, and how Soviet and Nazi terror bore most heavily on Ukrainian territory. Delivered as a Yale class session with captions available in Ukrainian and Russian, the talk gives historical depth to Russia's current war against Ukraine by placing it within a longer imperial pattern rather than treating it as an isolated event.