As Putin reaches nearly twenty years in power, Amb. Alexander Vershbow, former US ambassador to Russia; Amb. Daniel Fried, former US ambassador to Poland; and Anders Åslund, senior fellow, Eurasia Center, speak to Dave Lawler from Axios about what Russia has become under Putin’s rule and what its future will look like without him.
He’s [Putin] got what I call the King Lear problem. How do you go into retirement comfortably after you’ve done the things King Lear has done? There’s a reason people are out to get you.”
“He wants to keep this bleeding wound open and try to hold Ukraine back. But it’s not really working that way.”
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Putin and Russian foreign policy
The Kremlin abroad
Under leader Vladimir Putin, Russia’s direction changed in the late-90s, pivoting to a quasi-democracy to an authoritarian direction. During the same period, Putin’s external policy has become increasingly revisionist and aggressive, designed to overturn the post-Cold War world.
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