Summary: When Vladimir Putin was re-elected as Russian president in 2018, his position as the dominant personality of the post-Soviet era was enshrined. In his 15 years as president over two terms, he has established himself as the strongman of a resurgent great power. He has been unrelenting in the pursuit of core goals: the consolidation of political authority at home; and the promotion of Russia as an indispensable power. Eminent Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats had a conversation with the Director of the Lowy Institute’s Asian Power and Diplomacy Program, Hervé Lemahieu, about Russian politics and what it means for the rest of the world. Yevgenia Albats is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, author and radio host. She is Editor-in-Chief and CEO of The New Times, a Moscow-based, Russian language independent political weekly. She is also the host of Absolute Albats, a talk show on Echo Moskvy, the only remaining liberal radio station in Russia. She was an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow assigned to the Chicago Tribune in 1990, and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1993. She graduated from Moscow State University in 1980 and received her PhD in Political Science from Harvard University in 2004. Dr Albats visited Australia with the support of the University of Melbourne.
