At a time when direct contact between Russia and the West is limited, there is a greater need for more interactions and dialogue among experts from the South Caucasus, Turkey, the United States, Europe, and Russia. The Monterey Symposium will offer unique optics through which to view the course of Russian politics, its foreign policy, and the place of Russia in the world.

Join the Chatham House London Conference. The international order is fragmenting as states compete for influence and resources. International relations are increasingly transactional and volatile. Conflicts are raging across Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza and few actors possess the power to pursue pathways of peace. This year is also a unique opportunity for governments around the world to reset their mandates for change – finding new solutions to the climate crisis, migration or economic transformation.

Seventy-five years ago, twelve nations founded NATO to provide collective defense and uphold the rules-based international order. Today, with thirty-two members, NATO promotes global peace and stability both inside and beyond its borders. NATO has responded to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by supporting Kyiv, expanding the Alliance to include Finland and Sweden and adopting new regional defense plans. However, recent Russian gains threaten Ukraine and European security.

As the world's attention remains fixed on Russia's ongoing aggression in Ukraine, another critical development has been quietly unfolding: the gradual annexation of Belarus. This ongoing expansion of Russian influence over its neighbor has accelerated since the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election. Indebted to and dependent on Russia for support after the election crisis, Belarusian autocratic ruler Aliaksandr Lukashenka has made concessions that have allowed for greater Russian political, economic and military control.

The Russia Program Annual Conference is a major gathering of rising and confirmed social scientists deeply invested in Russian Studies. It seeks to provide cutting-edge insights into the study of Russia at war and to provoke discussion on the myriad of ways the decision to invade Ukraine affects Russian society, governance, the economy and the intricate web of international relations, especially with countries in the Global South.

What role did Alexei Navalny play in Russian politics? What were his roots? Why was he sentenced to 19 years in a maximum-security prison? And why was he ultimately killed? Russian journalist and a friend of Navalny’s of 20 years, Yevgenia Albats, citing Navalny's letters from prison, tells the story of the slain Russian opposition leader and what it means for the future of the country.

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese enjoyed unfettered access to Europe's economic, research and academic domains. Chinese President Xi Jinping's friendship pact with Russian President Vladimir Putin resulted in negative reverberations throughout European capitals and raised concerns about China's strategic ambitions and their impact on Europe.

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has brought bilateral relations with the United States to their lowest point since the Cuban missile crisis. Yet Russia remains a global actor that holds immense sway over a wide variety of other U.S. foreign policy priorities, including strategic competition with China, challenges with Iran and North Korea and safeguarding the health of the global economy. Faced with this new reality, how can U.S. policymakers support security in Europe while also making progress on their other foreign policy objectives where Russia matters? And with Vladimir Putin claiming to be at war with the West, how might the United States avert catastrophe with Russia?

The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world’s regions, changing both the geological and geopolitical landscape of the Arctic region. Meanwhile, China and Russia are enhancing their cooperation in the Arctic, particularly through China’s investments in Russia’s rich natural resources – coal, liquified natural gas (LNG) and oil – as well as in shipping and port infrastructure.

Join the Intelligence Project for a seminar with John J. Sullivan, Former Acting/Deputy Secretary of State, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2020-2022. Ambassador Sullivan will provide his perspective from his time in Moscow and share details of his forthcoming book, Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War Against the West, which will be released in August 2024.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the West imposed a range of sanctions on Russia’s natural-resource exports in an attempt to constrain its ability to wage war. In this talk, Delgerjargal Uvsh will examine the nature of these sanctions and how they have affected Russia’s state budget and the fiscal trade-offs the government has had to make.

Paula Dobriansky will moderate a seminar featuring Craig Kennedy, Daniel Russell and Paul Saunders. The seminar is sponsored by the Belfer Center and Russia Matters and a part of the series "Russia's Past, Present and Future."