Wellesley College’s Russia experts Thomas Hodge, Igor Logvinenko and Nina Tumarkin address some of the major challenges and achievements of the world’s largest country at a time when the relationship between Russia and the U.S. is in a dangerous state of flux.

As it moves closer to China and to far-right European populist governments, Russia under President Vladimir Putin continues to flex its considerable muscles. Russian people’s anti-American sentiments are high, while Putin’s approval ratings are relatively low. Violent police actions and mass arrests during weekly street protests in Moscow, the extensions of Western sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions, raging Siberian wildfires, and the Kremlin’s engagement in “memory wars”, are just a few aspects of the complex story that is “Russia NOW.”

Speakers:

• Thomas Hodge, professor of Russian
• Igor Logvinenko, assistant professor of political science 
• Nina Tumarkin, Kathryn Wasserman Davis Professor of Slavic Studies and professor of history

Moderator:

• Adam Weiner, professor of Russian