"Russian Realities: should we be resetting relations?"

By Boris Nemtsov, former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia

6-7pm, Monday 22nd June 2009

Grand Committee Room, House of Commons

To attend, please RSVP to jana.kobzova@henryjacksonsociety.org

For the past year, Dmitry Medvedev has been the Russian president without any real change from the Putin regime Russians and the world have come to know over nine years. While many argue that the type of Russia Putin provides is a dramatic improvement over the chaos that existed under Yeltsin, the 300 or so murdered journalists, arrested dissidents, ethnic minorities, and nationalized industries would disagree. Further, since Putin's nationalization of aspects of the Russian oil industry, foreign investment has begun to dry up as concern for their assets and a return on those investments has become significant.

The country that based so much of its economy on oil during the bubble continues to suffer as do human rights. Even as the Russian economy collapses first with the oscillation in oil prices and then the general worldwide economic downturn, Vladimir Putin's popularity remains high, perhaps, as some suggest, because of an absence of any real opposition to attach the problems Russia is facing to Putin. Putin having of course ruthlessly suppressed most forms of dissent.

Nor is the foreign policy outlook better. The Georgian War last summer was a reminder that Russia's appetite for its Near Abroad has not diminished. Likewise, many of the world's most dangerous states like North Korea and Iran rely on Russian support at the United Nation, while Russian energy resources have been used as a tool of politics, with Europe a willing partner to this abuse given the reluctance of EU nations to co-ordinate their Russia policy.

By kind invitation of Keith Simpson MP, the Henry Jackson Society is pleased to be able to invite you to a discussion of Russian Realities: should we be resetting relations? The discussion will cover Russia's internal and external challenges, including the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and murders of other journalists and dissidents like Anna Politskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, the economic crisis, Russian foreign policy and the 2012 Russian presidential elections and 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Boris Nemtsov, as one of the Russian democratic opposition's main leaders and an outspoken Putin critic, likely faces an uphill battle against government officials and essentially state-controlled media in a country where opposing presidential candidates tend to disappear or be arrested along with their supporters.

TIME: 6-7pm

VENUE: Grand Committee Room, House of Commons

To attend, please RSVP to jana.kobzova@henryjacksonsociety.org

Boris Nemtsov graduated from Gorky State University, earning his Ph. D. in Physics and Mathematics. He then worked at the Gorky Radio-Physics Research Institute as a senior scientist until 1990. Mr Nemtsov has had a long history as a reformer, first protesting what he believed led to the Chernobyl disaster in 1987 and later as a candidate for the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies. Nemtsov later served in the Russian parliament and was also appointed as Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

He was subsequently appointed to First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in 1997 and two years later became the co-founder of the Union of Right Forces, a political coalition that eventually developed into Vladimir Putin's main opposition. Mr. Nemtsov has also worked in the private sector, offering his support to reformist candidates, including Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine. He has previously collaborated with noted Russian chess champion and outspoken Putin critic, Gary Kasparov in the "Solidarity" movement.