One month after the 2022-2023 high school policy debate topic about NATO was selected, Russia invaded Ukraine. This will have major ramifications for many of the issues students will be researching and debating this year. Even when Ukraine is not the explicit subject of a debate, it will be the elephant in the room. In order to debate the NATO topic intelligently, students will need to know a lot about Ukraine, Russia, and the war.

To help debaters get started, I have curated a YouTube playlist with a series of videos about the history of Ukraine and Russia, the geography of the war, the important military developments so far, and the competing theories about the causes of the war.

I will continue to update this playlist throughout the summer with additional videos. Have a suggestion? Post a comment or email me.