Yale University
10 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2020–2023
1:53:04 · 9.5M views · Oct 2, 2018
Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner lectures at Yale on how US foreign policy toward Russia after the Soviet collapse shaped Putin, then takes audience questions on election interference, the Skripal poisoning and media independence.
During the 2022 Ukraine war threads, HN commenters recommended it as a non-Western perspective on Russia-West relations and Putin's motives.
19 comments from Hacker News
I highly encourage people to watch “How the United States created Vladimir Putin” that was presented in Yale University by Vladimir Pozner. It gives another perspective that’s often ignored how US and European foreign policy has played part in shaping what Russia is today. this video
To get better understanding what's really driving Russian government and Putin I strongly recommend to watch this talk this video
> When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large. There is an interview from Yale University with Vladimir Pozner that is very worth watching: this video It is absolutely insane that western media does not report anything positive on Russia and I hope it is obvious that it can't be a the case that a state can be that comically evil. And if not foreign policy at least cultural stuff should at least receive some positive attention with Russia having a rich tradition in theater, ballet, music and so on. The USSR did plenty to support its lesser developed republics. In fact that is is why many Russian nationalist saw it very critically, seeing as their land would give more that it received. Even today Russia has extremely good relations with the countries of central asia. As for foreign aid not only did it sent lots of aid to other socialist regimes but also many national liberation movements speeding up massively the de-colonization of Africa. The Russian Federation is also doing plenty of good. They help keeping the massive dominance of the US and it allies at least a little bit in check supporting many countries that are shunned by them. Syria would have been overrun by terrorists by now if Russia had not helped them. Of course you can twist every good news to make Russia look bad. Russian athletes are successful? Only the result of doping. Stabilit
"Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok" is a much older ideal, IIRC it has roots as far as in early 90s. And if you stretch it enough you can even trace it back to Charles de Gaulle. But for it to happen not only Russia has to significantly improve internally, but also EU itself has to be different. For starters it would have to be truly independent from the US influence and Brussel's grip on the union would have to be weaker. Russian political culture historically is very firm on being able to independently decide its own fate (and no, it's not a matter of "democratization"). Take the current EU issues with the Poles and multiply it a hundredfold to get a rough approximation of what the current EU would have with Russia. Before 2007 (see the Munich speech) Russia sincerely tried to join the EU and the collective West. But the condition "proposed" at the time and attitude towards Russia fundamentally collided with that deep culture, resulting in the situation which we see today. If you want to learn more about it from a non-Western perspective, I recommend watching this video
Interestingly, Kaliningrad is also brought up every single time in order to dismiss the argument raised in the parent comment. I wouldn't call your comment US propaganda because it's such a throw-around these days that one could automatically use it to dismiss people that don't share your view. The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it. Before rushing to putting all the blame on Russia just because "Putin-bad": I would strongly encourage people who are interested to know more to watch the following talks, from ages ago, given at reputable US universities because let's be honest, none of us is geopolitical historian two weeks ago on this topic so why don't we all do a bit more research. [1] A good overview of the history, 7 years ago from a talk @ U Chicago. ( [LINK] ) [2] Another one from a talk @ Yale: this video