Russia's New Recklessness

Russia will always matter, said Fiona Hill, former White House Russian expert, at the Harvard Kennedy School, only last month. This is due to its strategic location, it enormous land mass and its environmental impact, all of which make Russia impossible to ignore. The sudden death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader, coupled with Ukraine’s recent setbacks, America’s political turmoil and the coming presidential elections in Russia, have all conspired to boost Putin’s reckless confidence. Is he anticipating a new phase of global aggression, perhaps? And does his current political posturing signal the death knell for democracy?
Cambridge Forum considers what future prospects exist for Russia, post-Navalny, pre-election and what the global response should be in light of America’s ambivalence about the future of NATO. Can anything substantial be done to strengthen the democratic values of the Western alliance and counter the creeping worldwide shift toward autocratic regimes?
This week saw several thousand Russians brave the extreme cold and the real risk of arrest, to attend Navalny’s funeral in Moscow, giving mixed messages to the Kremlin. Was this gesture indicative of a deep political rift with Putin’s presidency or merely a last-ditch attempt to register dissent against all odds.
To aid our discussion we have two Russian experts, Neil MacFarlane , Professor Emeritus at Oxford University and Peter Pomerantsev is a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and co-director of the Arena Initiative.
0:00:31 - Introduction
0:02:30 - Discussion and Q&A
01:05:52 - Closing Remarks
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[@doktortutankamazon31]

Excellent discussion ! Thank you !

[@GBHForumNetwork]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Snovyda27]

Amazing logic from mr. MacFarlane here. Russia has been coddled to for decades, all international institutions working with it closely, all of its horrific aggressive actions (including outright genocidal ones) either ignored or even encouraged, its agency constantly put above that of its neighbours. And when it escalates the scale of those very actions as it has been encouraged, the conclusion is... "that's because we didn't coddle and encourage it enough". It is just incredible how blind people can be. The 90s were very hard for Ukraine as well. And it didn't get an ounce of support, respect or even acknowledgement that russia got. And for some reason Ukraine did not start invading and genociding its neighbours. Maybe, just maybe, russia should have been held to some standards of democracy, transparency and just human decency instead of being rewarded for every vrutal imperialist act?...

[@davidmetcalfe1289]

go Trump. When he gets in no more war with Ukraine