Guided Search: Community Development, Russian

In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation’s top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails.

"NEMTSOV", a film by Vladimir Kara-Murza (with English subtitles), presented by Vladimir Kara-Murza Q & A session with Vladimir Kara-Murza and Pavel Khodorkovskiy will follow the screening.

No registration necessary, all are welcome.

Drawing on two-and-a-half years of closely watching Russia's online influence operations and monitoring some 7,000 social media accounts, Clint Watts tells the disturbing story of the Kremlin's army of trolls and their role in spreading disinformation to undermine trust in Western electoral systems. It was while investigating jihadis online that Watts came across the online activities of Russian trolls.

“One of the most formidable brains of our era” (The Washington Post), chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov was the world’s #1 ranked player from 1986 until his retirement in 2005.

Why did the Soviet Union collapse? The dissolution of the USSR is particularly puzzling because China -- also a Marxist-Leninist autocracy -- managed to ditch its centrally-planned economy while maintaining an authoritarian political structure. Christopher Miller’s research in Soviet archives has found that Soviet officials closely followed Chinese policy, and directly copied many Chinese reforms.

Clark Hill Attorneys John P. Donohue and Karolien M. Vandenberghe will present a lunch seminar on the recently imposed Ukraine Sanctions. 

FEATURING: 

The Honorable William F. Burns, Major General, U.S. Army, Retired

H.E. Ambassador Jack F. Matlock

Fiona Hill, co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, joins the Council to discuss the complexity of Vladimir Putin—the dominant political figure in Russian leadership for more than a decade, his vision for Russia, and the implications of both for future relations with the United States and the rest of the world. Facilitator Edward Turzanski, Resident Scholar at the Council, Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and national security analyst at La Salle University will join the discussion.