Leonid Volkov, IT entrepreneur, Ekaterinburg politician and now Navalny's campaign manager, talks to Dr Sam Greene, Director of the King's Russia Institute, about preparing the campaign for the 2016 Duma Elections.  In English, followed by drinks.  Please note early start time.  

Leonid Volkov was born 1980 in Ekaterinburg, Russia and graduated from the Ural State University, PhD in Computer Science. Being a top-manager of one of the largest Russian IT-companies, in 2009 Leonid was elected to the City Council of Ekaterinburg, and served there for 5 years as its only independent member. In 2012 he organized the elections to the Coordination Council of Russian opposition, with over 170K registered voters the largest electronic elections in the world so far. In 2013 Leonid was in charge of Alexey Navalny' campaign for the Mayor of Moscow. Leonid is, together with Alexey Navalny and Vladimir Ashurkov, co-founder and member of the central committee of the Progress Party, a pro-european liberal party, widely considered as the only viable opposition force in contemporary Russian politics.

Dr Sam Greene is an expert in Russian politics and social movements, and the link between Russian domestic and foreign policy, Sam has written extensively in policy and academic formats and is a frequent commentator in Russian and international media. His areas of research interest currently focus on understanding Russia’s shifting state-society relations and the causes and implications of the recent re-emergence of contested politics in Russia, including the social, political and economic effects of new media. A 13-year resident of Moscow, he speaks fluent Russian and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sam has previously worked for six years at the Carnegie Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, including as deputy director. Right now Sam works as the founding Director of King’s Russia Institute.