Paul Starobin at Commonwealth Club

Monday, February 12, 2024
12:00pm — 1:00pm PT
The Commonwealth Club of California / virtual event

The future of Russia lies outside the country

Since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, some one million Russians have fled the country and gone into exile. Motivated by opposition to the war, by guilt for their country’s deeds, by personal hatred for the Czar-like Putin, and by a vision of a better Russia, shorn of autocracy, the exiles have mounted an organized resistance to Putin’s rule.

In Putin’s Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia, Paul Starobin, a veteran analyst of Russia, travels to places like Armenia and Georgia to meet with exiles and has conversations with prominent figures throughout Europe and America, as he takes measure of this rebellion—and its potential to fix a nation plagued by revanchist imperial dreams.

“A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the myriad motivations of exiled Russians and their ardent desires to shape their country’s future.” —Fiona Hill, Brookings Institution

 

Paul Starobin will be in conversation with Quentin Hardy, followed by an audience Q&A.

This is a virtual event

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Paul Starobin, a former Moscow bureau chief for Businessweek and former contributing editor of the Atlantic, has been writing about Russia and Russians for more than a quarter century. He is the author of three books, including After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age, and Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War. He has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

Quentin Hardy is head of editorial at Google Cloud. Before joining Google, he was deputy technology editor for the New York Times.

 

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