PENN LAW — On Tuesday, March 15, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School hosted an informative and insightful expert briefing on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, touching on various topics from the historical context underlying the conflict and economic repercussions to NATO military participation and humanitarian aid. Moderated by Carolina Brandão LLM’22, the panel featured Professor of Law William Burke-White, Perry World House Professor of Practice of Law and Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, Philip Nichols of the Wharton School and the Russia and East European Studies program in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, and Victoria Kaplan LLM’15, a native of Ukraine and an associate in Dechert’s global finance group. Burke-White laid the framework for the discussion by providing the historical underpinnings of the current conflict while interspersing his personal recollections of a childhood spent partly in Russia. Although Burke-White doesn’t envision direct Western military participation in the conflict, he noted that “everything short of that seems to be on the table” and questioned whether the U.S. and NATO has an “off-ramp” from military conflict should Russia’s invasion spill over into NATO territory even in a “mistaken escalation.”