Discussion

James Rodgers (City St George’s, University of London) will be joined by Bettina Renz (University of Nottingham) Stefan Wolff (University of Birmingham) to discuss his new book, The Return of Russia: From Yeltsin to Putin, the Story of a Vengeful Kremlin. In the book Rodgers examines the development of Russia’s relationship with the West from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present day. Rodgers argues that, while Putin has long distrusted the West, Western policies have made the situation much worse. He shows that Putin’s political career, with its transformations from supportive ally to implacable critic of the West, has been the defining influence on Russia’s place in the contemporary world.