David Satter - Russia Starts to Clamp down on Free Speech of Foreigners with Arrest of US Journalist

Pick the worst periods of Russian history and you will find echoes of them in the present day – whether that be the economic and mafia chaos of the 90s, the privations and repression of the Soviet period. And several stories from the last few weeks exemplify this devolution of Russia into the worst versions of itself from the past. The arrest of an American journalist. The defection of a former Kremlin security officer, and a spectacular assassination of a political extremist in St Petersburg. ---------- SPEAKER: Today I’m speaking to David Satter, journalist, and historian with unique insights into how the deformation and repression of the past, is having terrible consequences for present day Russia. David has written extensively about Russia and the Soviet Union, especially the decline and fall of the USSR and rise of post-Soviet Russia. David Satter became the first American journalist to be expelled from Russia since the Cold War in December 2013. This was perhaps not a surprising move, given that his books have covered topics such as the FSB’s role in the apartment bombings that brought Putin to power, and the criminalization of Russia under Boris Yeltsin. David’s core theme is why a pluralist and progressive state did not emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how this understanding guides it’s current policies and actions. From 1976 to 1982 David was the Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times, and then became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal. He is currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a fellow of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. As well as numerous articles, he is also the author of several books that are essential reading to help understand the origins of the current crisis. ----------