The end of communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. How did we go from the promise of the end of the cold war to the autocratic police state of Putin’s new Russia? In The Invention of Russia, a finalist for the prestigious Orwell Prize, Arkady Ostrovsky tells the story of Russia’s stealthy counter-revolution over the past 25 years, introducing us to the propagandists, oligarchs, and fixers who have set the country’s course since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Arkady Ostrovsky is the Russia and Eastern Europe correspondent for The Economist. He joined the paper in March 2007 after 10 years with the Financial Times, where he was one of the first journalists to warn of the resurgence of the KGB. As the FT‘s Moscow correspondent he covered Russian politics and business, including the Yukos Affair and how Putin’s seized control of the country’s top TV channels. At The Economist, he has written perceptively about Russia’s war with Ukraine, its seizure of Crimea and strong armed tactics in Georgia and other former Soviet republics, its bombing of Syria and strategic decision to declare victory and withdraw. He holds a doctorate degree from the University of Cambridge, and his translations of Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia was a long-standing fixture of the Moscow state.

New America is pleased to welcome Dr. Ostrovsky for a discussion of his book and Russia’s trajectory since the end of the Cold War.

Follow the discussion online using #InventionofRussia and following @NewAmericaISP.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase by check or credit card.PARTICIPANT

Dr. Arkady Ostrovsky

Author, The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War
Russia and Eastern Europe Correspondent, The Economist
@ArkadyOstrovsky

MODERATOR

Peter Bergen
Director, International Security Program
@peterbergencnn