Introduction - 02:38
Presentation - 04:03
Question and Answer - 43:15

Russia’s relations with the West and with its neighbor Ukraine have grown increasingly difficult over the past decade. What does the Kremlin want in general, and what drove it to launch a major invasion of Ukraine in February 2022? Our speaker Steven Pifer explores these questions and what the future may hold for Russia and Ukraine.

Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry Fellow at the at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also an affiliate of Stanford’s Europe Center and a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.

A career Foreign Service officer, Ambassador Pifer’s more than 25 years with the US Department of State included assignments as US Ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for Russia and Ukraine (2001-2004), and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia on the National Security Council (1996-1997). He also served at the US embassies in Warsaw, Moscow, and London, as well as in Geneva with the US delegation to the negotiation on intermediate range nuclear forces.

Ambassador Pifer is the author of The Eagle and the Trident: U.S.-Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times (Brookings Institution Press, 2017). He is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in economics.