Inquiry: The State of the Ukraine Conflict

The IGL’s Inquiry program begins Thursday, April 7, with a lecture on “The State of the Ukraine Conflict” with Tufts and IGL Alumna Alexandra Vacroux, Executive Director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, and Fletcher Alumnus Arik Burakovsky, Assistant Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Dr. Vacroux’s scholarly work addresses many Russian and Eurasian policy issues. In addition, she teaches popular courses on the comparative politics of Eurasia and post-Soviet conflict. She has mentored dozens of Harvard’s Russian regional studies students and scholars, and co-chairs the Davis Center's long-running Comparative Politics Seminar. Prior to joining the Davis Center in 2010, she held a variety of scholarly and business positions in the American and Russian capitals. In Washington, DC, she was a Scholar at the Kennan Institute (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars). While living in Moscow for more than a decade in the 1990s, she was consultant to the Russian Privatization Agency, President of the American brokerage for the Brunswick Warburg investment bank, and member of the board of United Way Moscow. She also served as research associate at the Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), a Russian think tank associated with the New Economic School. Burakovsky’s research interests include the political role of the international media, public and elite opinion, soft power, public diplomacy, and U.S.-Russia relations. While pursuing his M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Arik interned in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy Moscow and studied the Polish language and culture as a Boren Fellow at the University of Warsaw in Poland. He has twice served as Resident Director for the ROTC Project GO intensive summer Russian language program in Narva, Estonia.