The Lawfare Podcast: Trouble in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

Jen Patja, Benjamin Wittes, Alina Polyakova, Alexander Vindman, William Courtney, Dmitri Alperovitch
Friday, January 14, 2022, 12:00 PM
Meet The Authors

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Subscribe to Lawfare

There's a lot going on in Russia's near-abroad, the countries on the periphery of the Russian Federation. There’s a war brewing in Ukraine, with talks in Geneva between Russia and the West seeming to fail this week. There are also Russian troops in Kazakhstan, there at the invitation of the autocratic Kazakh government in response to protests over fuel prices.

To check in on the situation, Benjamin Wittes sat down on Lawfare Live with Alina Polyakova of the Center for European Policy Analysis; Alex Vindman, the Pritzker Military Fellow at Lawfare; Ambassador William Courtney, who served as ambassador to Kazakhstan; and Dmitri Alperovitch, the founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator. They talked about what's going on in Kazakhstan, the failure of the diplomatic process in Geneva, and the war that seems to be coming in Ukraine.

Lawfare Live is a Patreon exclusive - Signing up to become a patron of Lawfare earns you attendance at the weekly Lawfare Live show, where you can watch interviews with leading experts in real time and pose questions of your own. You also get the chance to join a community of Lawfare readers and listeners, engage more with Lawfare's top editors and contributors, and access ad-free versions of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security.

Back to Top
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

Read More
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Benjamin Wittes

Benjamin Wittes

Read More
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Alina Polyakova

Alina Polyakova

Read More
Alina Polyakova is the David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program's Center on the United States and Europe and adjunct professor of European studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Alexander Vindman

Alexander Vindman

@AVindman
Read More
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander S. Vindman (Retired), a Pritzker Military Fellow at Lawfare, was most recently the director for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Russia on the White House’s National Security Council. Prior to retiring from the U.S. Army, he served as a Foreign Area Officer with assignments in Moscow, Russia and for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a Political-Military Affairs Officer. While on the Joint Staff, he co-authored the National Military Strategy Russia Annex and was the principal author for the Global Campaign for Russia. He is currently a doctoral student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Visiting Fellow at Perry World House.
William Courtney

William Courtney

Read More
Ambassador William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation and was executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum. He served as ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the U.S.-Soviet Bilateral Consultative Commission to implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.
Dmitri Alperovitch

Dmitri Alperovitch

@DAlperovitch
Read More
Dmitri Alperovitch is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a non-profit focused on advancing American prosperity and global leadership in the 21st century and beyond. He is a Co-Founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike Inc., a leading cybersecurity company, and has served as a special advisor on cybersecurity strategy to the Department of Defense.

Subscribe to Lawfare