Serhii Plokhii

Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University. A leading authority on Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe, he has published extensively on the international history of World War II and the Cold War. His books have won numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best English-language book on international relations for The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union (2014), the Taras Shevchenko National Prize (Ukraine) for The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015), the Ballie Gifford Prize and Pushkin House Book Prize (UK) for Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy (2018), and the Duke d’Arenberg Prize in European History for The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History (2023). His latest book is The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power, and Survival (2025).