Russia today: Western neighbours and public diplomacy

Russia today: Western neighbours and public diplomacy

Nordic conference series on Russia and the Nordics – Nordic House | Sep 9, 2016

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 Program:

08:30    Door opens, coffee in the lobby

09:00   Welcome address

09:05    Mikhail Zygar (Keynote), Editor in Chief at independent TV station Dozhd and author of Russian best-seller „All the Kremlin´s Men“

Topic: Russian politics today – Putin, the press and the imaginary war

09:30    Q&A: Interview by journalist Kristinn Hrafnasson with Mikhail Zygar

10:00   Coffee break

 10:15   Arkady Moshes (2^nd keynote), Programme Director – The EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia research programme, The Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)

Topic: Russian-European relations – where do we go from here?

10:45   Jens Nytoft Rasmussen, Senior Advisor for international co-operation, Nordic Council of Ministers

Topic: Nordic Council of Ministers´ collaboration with West-Russia

11:00   Cecilie Landsverk, Ambassador of Norway

Topic: Russia and Norway

11:15   Rósa Magnúsdóttir, Associate Professor, Aarhus University

Topic: Soviet-Icelandic cultural relations and public diplomacy in the 20th century

11:45   Panel discussion with participants

12:20   Closing

 Moderator is Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir, Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Iceland.

The conference will be held in English. Entrance is free of charge and everyone is welcome.

 

Keynote Speakers:

 Mikhail Zygar is without doubt one of the most interesting media personalities in Russia. He started his career as a war correspondent at Russia´s most influential newspaper but today he is best known as a best-selling author and founding editor-in-chief of Dozhd, which was the only independent news TV-channel at the time. Dozhd e.g. covered politically sensitive issues such as the street protests in Moscow in 2011 and 2012 and the Ukraine conflict. In 2015 Mikhail authored the book „All the Kremlin´s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin“. The book was a number-one best-seller in Russia for four months after its release. The book has been translated into many languages and will be published in English in September 2016. In 2014 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) honored Mikhail Zygar with the annual International Press Freedom Award.

Reviews about „All the Kremlin´s Men“ from New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and more can be found here.

Arkady Moshes is Program Director for the EU Eastern Neighborhood and Russia research program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (Finland). Before moving to Finland in 2002, he had been since 1988 working in the Institute of Europe in Moscow. From 2008 to 2015 he was an associate member of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He has authored a large number of academic and analytical publications and is a frequent media commentator. He co-edited Russia as a Network State: What Works in Russia When State Institutions Do Not (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), co-authored Not Another Transnistria: How sustainable is separatism in Eastern Ukraine? (FIIA, 2014), and contributed articles to, among others International Affairs (2012) and Post-Soviet Affairs (2015).

 

The conference is organized by the Nordic House in Reykjavik and Nordic in focus in collaboration with the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland. The conference is a part of a Nordic conference series

More about the series here.

 

For more information:
Kristín Ingvarsdóttir
kristini@nordichouse.is
Tel: +354 551 7032