WCVE Forum: “Putin and Russian Statecraft”

Vladimir Putin

After Russian leader Vladimir Putin assumed power in August 1999, speculation about his character, motives, and plans for Russia’s future has been rampant. A portrait of Putin has emerged in the West that is one-dimensional and diametrically opposed to the image of Putin the majority of Russians hold. Even after he stepped down as president in May 2008, retaining a significant measure of power as prime minister under his hand-picked successor, President Dmitri Medvedev, Putin remains poorly understood.

In this edition of World Affairs Council, Allen C. Lynch seeks to reconcile the two conflicting images from his interpretive biography of Putin and to find out just where the truth lies about the man and the statesman.

Lynch convincingly demonstrates how a complex interplay of Russia’s post-Soviet circumstances and the particular path of Putin’s career have informed his choices as leader.

Join WCVE Public Radio Sunday, February 19 at 6:00 p.m. for WCVE Forum

Lynch is a professor at the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia and also serves as the Executive Vice-President of the Feris Foundation of America, Inc. He received his MA and Ph.D. from Columbia University and is the author of several books, including How Russia Is Not Ruled: Reflections on Russian Political Development (2005) and Does Russia Have a Democratic Future? (1997).

Photo: kremlin.ru