The Russian presidential elections in March 2018 took place as expected. Vladimir Putin received a landslide victory, whereas the most active opposition figure, Aleksey Navalny, was not allowed to compete and his boycott campaign that followed did not become a problem for the regime. Putin’s other competitors proved incapable of providing any viable alternative under the circumstances of strengthening authoritarianism. However, the question remains open whether the opposition has a chance to challenge the regime in the future. While the divide-and-rule tactics against the opposition have been effective thus far, Putin’s victory does not automatically promise any further consolidation of the society around the president. Old problems resurfaced after the elections in the form of protests over landfills in Moscow and against corrupt authorities in Kemerovo. Quite possibly, persisting domestic challenges along with hardening international circumstances may bring Russian political process to a stalemate. This seminar will offer an opportunity to discuss the situation in Russian politics and society in the beginning of Putin’s fourth presidential term.
Puhujat
Panelistit
Puheenjohtaja
Arkady Moshes is Programme Director for the Russia, EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Eurasia research programme. He is also a member of the Programme on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) at George Washington University. Moshes’ areas of expertise include Russian foreign policy, European-Russian relations as well as internal and foreign policy of Ukraine and Belarus. He received his Ph.D in history of international relations from the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992).
Before moving to Finland in 2002, he had been working in the Institute of Europe in Moscow since 1988. From 2008 to 2015 he was an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House. From 2017 to 2022 he was a member of EU-Russia Expert Network (EUREN). He has been a visiting scholar at the Danish Institute for International Studies (2002) and the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University (2016), a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2007) and a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defence College (2005-10, 2013-15) and Geneva Center for Security Policy (1998-2022).
Arkady Moshes has authored a large number of academic and analytical publications and is a frequent media commentator.
He co-edited “A Slavic Triangle? Present and Future Relations Between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus” (Swedish National Defence College, 2002), “Russia as a Network State: What Works in Russia When State Institutions Do Not” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), “What has remained of the USSR: Exploring the erosion of the post-Soviet space” (FIIA, 2019) and “Russian Policy toward Belarus after 2020 At a Turning Point?” (Lexington Books, 2023) and contributed articles to, among others, Security Dialogue, International Affairs, Post-Soviet Affairs and Demokratizatsiya.