As Pres. Trump and Pres. Putin meet in Alaska to negotiate a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, I speak with scholars of Russia and ask them these questions:

►Who is Putin?

►What event had the biggest impact on his worldview?

►Is he an ideological man?

►Does he love Russia?

►Is he a risktaker?

►Does he fear that Russians will revolt against him?

►Does he want to be remembered in history as Putin the Great? Actually, that would be Vladimir the Great.

🚩About My Guest Scholars:

Dr. Kathryn Stoner. I interviewed her in March 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and while the Covid-19 pandemic was a threat. She was then a scholar at Stanford University and had published an important book, Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order. Here is our full interview.

Dr. Mark Steinberg. I interviewed him in April 2022, when there was talk of overthrowing Putin. Dr. Steinberg is professor emeritus at the Department of History of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published extensively about Russia, including Voices of Revolution, 1917; The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921; and also Russian Utopia. Here is our full interview.

🚩My Recommendations:

►⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠S2E8: Wars in Ukraine, Dr. David R. Stone

►⁠S2E5: Ukraine's National Identity, Dr. Catherine Wanner

►⁠S5E39: Crimea and Crimean Tatars, Dr. Greta Uehling

Image Attribution:

Vladimir Putin, July 14, 2025. By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0. Image cropped on its sides to Zoom in on Mr. Putin.

🚩Adel Aali

host & producer

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