Join Fiona Hill, author of the highly-regarded Mr Putin, Operative in the Kremlin and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, to discuss what conditions Russia's responses to international events, including in Ukraine, Syria and Iran, and what conditions President Putin's personal responses as a political leader.  Develop your own understanding and analysis in an already highly polarised and manipulated context.  

Fiona Hill is director of the Center on the United States and Europe, and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. She is a frequent commentator on Russian and Eurasian affairs, who has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues. She is also the co-author of the recently published book, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Brookings Press, 2013).

Her book with Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy, The Siberian Curse. How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold, was published by Brookings Press in December 2003; and her monograph, Energy Empire: Oil, Gas and Russia’s Revival, was published by the London Foreign Policy Centre in 2004. Other select publications include: “Putin and the Uses of History” (with Cliff Gaddy), The National Interest, January 4, 2012; “Putin’s Next Move in Russia” (with Cliff Gaddy), in the Brookings Interview series, November 2011; “How Russia and China See the Egyptian Revolution,” Foreign Policy (online), February 15, 2011; “Dinner with Putin: Musings on Modernization in Russia,” in the Brookings Foreign Policy Trip Reports, October 2010; “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? The Realities of a Rising China and Implications for Russia’s Energy Ambitions” (with Erica Downs), in the Brookings Foreign Policy Paper series, August 2010; “Fear of Democracy or Revolution: The Reaction to Andijan?” (with Kevin Jones) in The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2006; “Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?” (with Omer Taspinar) in Survival, Spring 2006; “Whither Kazakhstan?” In the National Interest, October 2005; “Beyond Codependency: European Reliance on Russian Energy,” U.S.-Europe Analysis Series, July 2005; “A Spreading Danger: Time for a New Policy Toward Chechnya,” (with Anatol Lieven and Thomas de Waal) Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief, March 2005; and “Governing Russia: Putin’s Federal Dilemmas,” New Europe Review, January 2005.

From 2006–2009, Hill was on leave from Brookings as the National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. Prior to joining Brookings, Hill was director of strategic planning at The Eurasia Foundation in Washington, DC. From 1991–1999, she held a number of positions directing technical assistance and research projects at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, including associate director of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI), director of the Project on Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union, and coordinator of the Trilateral Study on Japanese-Russian-U.S. Relations.

Hill holds an A.M. in Soviet Studies and Ph.D. in History from Harvard University where she was a Frank Knox Fellow; an M.A. degree in Russian and Modern History from St. Andrews University in Scotland; and has pursued studies at Moscow’s Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages. Hill is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Board of Trustees of The Eurasia Foundation.