Ponars Eurasia Podcast

In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Natalya Chernyshova (University of Winchester) and Nikolay Petrov (Chatham House) about the ongoing protests in Belarus, and what they mean for the future of the current regime.

In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov (Levada Center) to learn more about public perceptions around current events in Khabarovsk, the "reset" of Putin's term limits, and the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the transcript here.

In this PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Nikolay Petrov (Chatham House) and Ivan Kurilla (European University at Saint Petersburg) to learn more about current events unfolding in Russia’s regions, focusing in particular on the cities of Khabarovsk and Saint Petersburg. Full transcript here

In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Maria Repnikova (Georgia State University) and Maxim Trudolubov (Meduza) to learn more about the state of news media in Russia and China today.

In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Aleksey Miller (European University, Saint Petersburg) to learn more about historical memory in Russia, and ongoing conflict over the memory of World War II in particular.

In early spring, the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly upset Putin's plans to stage several events designed to reinforce his legitimacy. Quarantine measures imposed by local officials helped to stem the spread of the virus, but the consequences of those measures included serious economic fallout and discontent. Now, many of these measures have been abruptly lifted, and the country is preparing to proceed with a large military parade as well as a major constitutional vote despite risks that these events might pose. How are Russians reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic and the government's performance in response to it? In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Samuel Greene and Ella Paneyakh to learn more about public perception regarding the COVID pandemic in Russia.

In April 2019, political novice Volodymyr Zelensky was elected the new President of Ukraine in a landslide victory. When Zelensky took over the presidency, he was faced by a host of immense challenges, including fighting corruption, reducing the clout of the oligarchs, and achieving a breakthrough in multilateral talks over the ongoing conflict in Donbass. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to an economic downturn and called for urgent and costly decisions, has only further aggravated Zelensky’s predicament. In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about the first year of Zelensky’s presidency and his administration's response to the COVID pandemic.

The North Caucasus is a highly complicated territory in Russia, comprised of seven different ethnic republics with complex relationships to the Russian federal center. Throughout the region, the already immense challenges of dealing with the COVID pandemic have been amplified by chronic local problems within several of the region's republics. In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ekaterina Sokirianskaia and Grigory Shvedov to learn more about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the North Caucasus.

  How have different systems of government influenced responses to the COVID-19 pandemic? Why have some countries managed to effectively curb the spread of the Ccronavirus, while others continue to see rising numbers of infections and fatalities? What can we learn from exploring these comparisons, and how will social attitudes and state policies change moving forward? In this week's episode, Maria Lipman chats with Şener Aktürk to learn more about the comparative politics of the coronavirus pandemic.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, it would never have occurred to anyone to group Belarus together with Sweden. But today the wealthy Scandinavian country and the poor Eastern European one have something important in common: Neither has followed the rest of Europe into the lockdown.   Why has Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko chosen to act in full defiance of World Health Organization recommendations? How does the public view this defiance? What might be the implications for the upcoming Belarusian presidential elections? In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Ioffe to learn more.

In 2020, the Easter holidays coincided closely with the rise of the COVID epidemic in Russia. In March, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church finally complied with government authorities, who urged closing the church to parishioners - but numerous bishops and priests ignored the Patriarch’s call. Some even expressed open and vocal disobedience. How unusual is the current defiance of the patriarch’s admonition, and what may be its implications? In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Xenia Luchenko to learn more about what the COVID pandemic means for the future of the Russian Orthodox Church.

As the COVID pandemic continues to spread, countries across the globe are facing formidable challenges. Despite major differences in their political and economic systems and policy making processes, Russia and the United States are currently undertaking similar protective measures in order to combat the spread of the virus – but opinions regarding these measures are divided. Where are citizens in these two countries getting their information about the virus? How do these populations feel about the protective measures being taken? What kind of political consequences might the pandemic have for leaders in both countries? In this week’s episode, Maria Lipman chats with James Bell of Pew Research Center and Denis Volkov of the Levada Center about public opinion regarding the pandemic in the United States and Russia to learn more.

In mid-January, Russia embarked on a major constitutional reform, introducing a series of constitutional amendments that were swiftly adopted by federal and regional parliaments. The most important amendment, which appeared at the last moment, proposed a "reset" of Putin's presidential term limit, thereby allowing him to run for the presidency again in 2024.Why did Putin need to revise the constitution, how long has the Kremlin been planning this move, and how has it been influenced by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic?In the first of a new series of PONARS Eurasia Podcasts, Masha Lipman chats with Ben Noble of University College London, Nikolai Petrov of Chatham House, and Henry Hale of George Washington University to learn more.

Ora John Reuter (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) discusses why Russians vote in elections and why the authorities even care if people vote.

Graeme Roberston (University of North Carolina) discusses his new book, Putin v. the People, co-authored with Samuel Greene (Kings College London), which provides insights into the role of personality and emotions in buttressing Putin's rule, possible post-Putin scenarios, and Russian politics more generally. (Also see their recent Point & Counterpoint article: "What Makes Putin Putin?")

Arturas Rozenas (NYU) discusses how Russian state-controlled media manipulates information to influence politics inside and outside Russia as well as the understudied components of Russian propaganda.

Igor Logvinenko (Wellesley College) discusses how Russia became so integrated with global financial markets and what U.S. policymakers should understand about how this "entanglement" affects sanctions policy on Russia.

Listen to Andrey Makarychev (University of Tartu, Estonia) discuss the dynamics of the "post-Crimean" Russia-EU relationship and how they affect geopolitics in the Baltic Sea region.

ucan Ahmad Way (University of Toronto) discusses the spread of competitive authoritarianism in Eastern Europe, Russian interferences in democratic states, and the revolutionary orgins of Soviet durability.

Hannah Chapman (Miami University, Ohio) discusses the effectiveness of Russia's media strategies in its near abroad and how they relate to Moscow's broader geopolitical goals in the region.