Resurgence of Soviet Terror and Manipulation of History - David Satter explains the current conflict

Russia’s war against Ukraine has escalated significantly this year, but did not start in February, or even in 2014. Its roots are far deeper, and more malign than just territorial ambitions. Today I am exploring how Russia got to this point, and where is goes next, with the person perhaps best equipped to answer this question, and a long-standing critic of The Kremlin – David Satter. Russia’s attempts to control, coerce and dominate Ukraine have deep roots in its Soviet and imperialist past, and are very much a by-product of the weaknesses and internal dynamics its aging, totalitarian regime. David Satter is a journalist and historian who 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. He has been a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 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, including the brilliantly named books: - It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past - Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State - The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin