VIDEO: Is Russia Under Pressure?
Have Western attempts to weaken Russia over the last three years been effective?
Since 2014, the United States and its allies have provided increasing military support to Ukraine while imposing more and tougher economic sanctions on Russia, especially since Russia launched its February 2022 invasion. Notwithstanding their starkly different approaches and stated goals, the Biden administration and the Trump administration have each framed these measures as components of strategies to end the war. But how much pressure does Russia face? Is it enough to require significant concessions to Ukraine? And could ending the fighting create new problems for leaders in Moscow? On April 8, the Center for the National Interest hosted an expert panel to discuss.
—Jeffrey Edmonds is a Senior Analyst at CNA and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, where he has focused on a variety of national security issues, including Russia’s military and its invasion of Ukraine. He has served as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs as well Director for Russia on the National Security Council staff. He has also worked as a CIA senior military analyst and served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve, to include tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
—Craig Kennedy is an advisory board member and an associate of Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He has extensive experience with Russia’s economy and energy economy after having opened the Cambridge Energy Research Associates Moscow office in the early 1990s and worked for decades with Morgan Stanley and later with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was vice chairman. He has cooperated closely with the International Working Group on Russia Sanctions.
Paul Saunders, president of the Center for the National Interest, moderated the discussion.
Image: ID1974 / Shutterstock.com.