The future of Russia and Ukraine
Political scientist Kathryn Stoner is the Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford and an authority on Russian/Ukrainian politics.
She says views on the current war depend on which side someone is on: Many Russians and their leader Vladimir Putin say Ukrainians are Russians and have been since the 10th century. Ukrainians strongly disagree, likening the two nations to the U.S. and Great Britain. How the present conflict is resolved has important implications for other former Soviet states and the future of the European Union, as Stoner tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kathryn Stoner: So it's Putin's generation that's made their peace with being cut from the West and they are not isolated from the rest of the world. But the younger generation isn't necessarily happy or contented with that. And so I think that's the hopeful thing.
[00:00:20] Russ Altman: This is Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything and I'm your host Russ Altman. If you're enjoying the show or if it's helped you in any way please consider rating and reviewing. We especially like fives, if we deserve them. Your input is extremely important for spreading the news and getting the algorithms to love us, as much as I know you do.
[00:00:39] Today, Kathryn Stoner from Stanford University will tell us what we need to understand about the history of Russia and the history of Ukraine in order to understand the terrible conflict that's ongoing now. It's the future of Russia.
[00:00:53] Before we get started, a quick reminder to rate and review The Future of Everything podcast on whatever app you're following it in.
[00:01:07] There's a terrible conflict happening between Russia and Ukraine, and it's created turmoil in that region and globally. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and there's been economic, political, and cultural implications of this conflict. Well, in order to understand this conflict, you need to understand the perspective of the Russians and Vladimir Putin on Ukraine. You have to understand the Ukrainian perspective on their own history. And you need to understand the role that these two countries play in the world and the impacts they have on places like the United States of America.
[00:01:41] Well, Kathryn Stoner is a senior fellow at the Spogli Freeman Institute for International Studies. And she's the director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She's an expert on Russia, and she's an expert on the Russian Ukrainian conflict. She'll help us understand the roots of this conflict. And in the end, give us some hope for how this may end well for everybody involved.
[00:02:09] Kathryn, thanks for being here. You're an expert in Russian affairs. How should we understand the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the context of Russian history and politics?
[00:02:19] Kathryn Stoner: That's a big opening question, Russ, but okay, um, uh, I'll take a hit at that. How you understand the history kind of depends on, uh, whose side you're on. So, um, on the one hand, if we look at, uh, Vladimir Putin's perspective, and he's now been president or prime minister of Russia. But anyway, in charge for the last twenty-four years and he's got another twelve to go, potentially. Ukraine, from his perspective, and he wrote this historical missive a few years ago, two or three years ago, basically explaining the unity of the Ukrainian and Russian people.
[00:02:58] And so he sees them as a single community that was originally united. He goes back all the way, um, to Kievan Rus' uh, and, um, and the tenth century and, um, the taking on of, uh, Russian Orthodox religion by Prince Vladimir. And he sees this as the founding, uh, of Russia. And Kievan Rus' obviously starts in Kiev. And so he then takes Russian history from there. So let's remember, he's not a professional historian.
[00:03:30] Russ Altman: Right, right.
[00:03:31] Kathryn Stoner: Um, but, um, he thinks he is, right?
[00:03:33] Russ Altman: And this is a convenient narrative for him, obviously.
[00:03:37] Kathryn Stoner: Absolutely. Absolutely. And he draws on history and, uh, um, and so, you know, Ukraine is kind of sacred Russian imperial territory. Now, from the Ukrainian perspective, they pick up the story, that any way you argue it, they say, look, we're an independent country. And you could almost think of it, um, like the United States and Great Britain, um, in some ways, right? Um, Putin says that, look, um, religiously, we're the same. It was a historical accident that we gave, uh, Ukraine away. That, you know, that was the fault of Vladimir Lenin and the communists.
[00:04:14] It's an artificial construct. Uh, the language is the same, blah, blah, blah. The Ukrainians say, look, this is a little bit like, you know, the United States and its revolution against, uh, the Empire. Either way you slice it, even if you go back to 989 as he does, um, and, uh, and Kievan Rus', it's Kievan Rus', right? So there was a Kiev before there was a, as a Russia.
[00:04:38] Um, but in 1991, December, Soviet Union breaks up and we have fifteen independent countries. And one of them is Ukraine and another one is Russia. And they are independent and different. Um, and I could keep going, but, uh Putin's predecessor as president of Russia, uh, Boris Yeltsin, um, signed a document acknowledging that, you know, they, this was an independent country and several other documents that, uh, later that in exchange for nuclear weapons, Russia would respect Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian borders. Um, and so those are pretty different perspectives, right? Ukraine, no matter how you slice it, we're our own place. And just because we speak a language that's similar, but not the same as Russian, doesn't mean we want to be governed by Russia again. And Putin and many people in Russia see it completely the opposite.
[00:05:38] Russ Altman: So given that they have this entrenched different, let's now take the United States perspective and there's a strategic aspect to this. And I know this is one of the things you study very closely. So putting that aside, and maybe we have opinions about that we being, you know, as if we're all a single voice. Maybe the United States has an opinion on that argument. But there's also strategic and lots of other implications of this conflict for the United States. So kind of the same question, how do we look at this? And to the extent that we are a we.
[00:06:07] Kathryn Stoner: Right. And there's how we did and how we do. Um, right. And so, well, so the U.S. signed an agreement with, uh, France and with Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and Kazakhstan in 1994. The, um, Budapest memorandum, that, um, was, uh, all about basically moving, um, heritage nuclear, or legacy nuclear weapons from those four former republics. Uh, or three former republics of the Soviet Union into the fourth Russia, so that Russia would take over nuclear weapons.
[00:06:43] And so we were particularly concerned about that, uh, coming out of the Cold War at that time. And so that was an agreement we also signed. And we said in return for this, we will provide security for Ukraine. Now, we didn't say we guarantee, uh, NATO, that came later under George W. Bush at a NATO meeting in 2004.
[00:07:10] But, uh, we did, you know, I think a lot of people forget and Putin conveniently doesn't ever mention this, um, that his predecessor signed this agreement. So you, you know, our perspective is that Ukraine, just like the other fourteen former republics of the Soviet Union, are independent states, um, until their people decide otherwise.
[00:07:33] And there was a referendum in December of 1991, and it was resoundingly in favor of Ukraine becoming a, uh, an independent country. So our perspective is, um, there are rules in the international system governed by international law. And because, uh, there are not mechanisms like, you know, that are in terms of enforcing them, um, other than us all having a moral responsibility to do so or war, right?
[00:08:01] Um, and, um, so we not only feel we have this responsibility because we signed this security, um, guarantee. Um, but we also, or security assurance, I shouldn't say guarantee because it was kind of weak, to be honest. Um, we also view it as this is, uh, an aggressive war that was unprovoked on Ukraine. Um, Russia attacked a peaceful country and the reasons for that were, we think, uh, are because Mr. Putin saw, um, the possibility of Ukraine becoming a democracy and also joining the European Union. So not so much NATO, but the European Union and therefore pulling Ukraine away, um, from sort of Russian hegemony in that region.
[00:08:49] Russ Altman: So, and I believe you've written about and talked about how, is this a test case? Is this something that we should, we United States should be very careful about? Because as you've said now a couple of times, there's thirteen other, uh, former Soviet, uh, republics and they are at perhaps a similar risk. And how real is that risk? And how do you assess that? Because then we're starting, they're not, uh, those are people my age start thinking about similar arguments that were made about Southeast Asia in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. And we went, we know that that didn't go very well. So, and I don't want to bring that in kind of spuriously and I'm not a historian. But tell me about this domino effect, kind of the obvious, kind of maybe overly simplistic domino effect argument.
[00:09:34] Kathryn Stoner: Yeah. So, I mean, the, so the argument would be, and I think there are, um, some reasonable, uh, data points that would affirm this argument, would be that, uh, as you mentioned, so fifteen former republics that made up the Soviet Union.
[00:09:49] Russ Altman: Right.
[00:09:49] Kathryn Stoner: Russia and, and Ukraine are two, and then there are thirteen more. Um, the Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, they have joined the European Union. They have also joined NATO. Russia has given up on them, basically, for the most part, right? Although, you know, they may interfere from time to time. And in one of my books, I talk about this a fair amount. Russia has a lot of different levers of control over all of these other fourteen republics including Ukraine. So the two I'd say that are, or three, that are most at risk. And one could argue if you're in Kazakhstan, four, um, are Georgia. Um, which is in the sort of South Caucasus region, above Armenia and Azerbaijan.
[00:10:31] Moldova, which is to the west of Ukraine. Also kind of a struggling quasi democracy, liberalizing and then Belarus. Now, Kazakhstan has a huge border, um, in Central Asia. Um, with Russia, it has a huge Russian population, but there's an important difference, I think, between Kazakhstan and let's say Ukraine or Georgia or Moldova, um, and that is that, um, it has an authoritarian government.
[00:10:58] Um, and it is a softer form of authoritarianism than Russia has become. But it is, uh, it is maybe more of a fellow traveler, its leadership, um, and governing system closer to Russia's and so therefore less of a threat. They also have China, um, sitting there as well. So different kind of dynamic then with the republics that are more to the west of Russia's borders.
[00:11:25] So the worry in Georgia, for example, this little weak country that very few of us probably think about, um, except here in Palo Alto, you know, that we have a Georgian restaurant.
[00:11:33] Russ Altman: Yes.
[00:11:34] Kathryn Stoner: Um, there's another one, another branch of that restaurant in Los Altos. Um, Georgia is a really fascinating country. I've been there a bunch of times. Um, and it had been, uh, democratizing, liberalizing, really gunning to join the EU and NATO. And now they've had a change of government, and that government just recently tried to, and actually succeeded in introducing a law, um, that was very similar to one of the first laws Putin introduced to crack down on civil society and NGOs.
[00:12:05] So, um, some of these places are valuable to Russia because there are pipelines that run through them. And so Georgia has, uh, has that pipeline issue. Um, but also, again, you know, this is an issue of falling out of Russia's orbit potentially and providing an example to Russians who may be not so happy with Mr. Putin, uh, of a different way of governing. And so that's also, we think, one of the biggest threats that, that he sees. If they had one of these color revolutions, as did Ukraine, that as the Georgians did. So this is a political risk.
[00:12:43] Russ Altman: Yeah. So you said that Georgia was kind of pretty gung ho about democracy and it seems like having democratic values is kind of a prerequisite for NATO and EU. But how, and I know you've written about this, this is one of your expertise areas. How democracy ready are these countries? And I say that very naively, not even knowing what that means. But, um, you know, I, we've all heard things about the nature of these democracies. They're nascent, democracy is hard.
[00:13:12] I think we're living that right now. So anybody who thought it was easy was wrong. Um, uh, and, um, and how should we think about those democratic movements under extreme pressure, uh, and with these neighbors, this big neighbor who has big time problems with democracy. Uh, but although I know you also study whatever the internal Russian interests and instincts for democracy are. So maybe a little primer on democracy in that part of the world.
[00:13:42] Kathryn Stoner: Sure. So, I mean, yes, you are right, Russ. Democracy is really hard, um, and it's problematic. And, um, but it's the, you know, uh, it's the worst of all systems except for all the alternatives.
[00:13:53] Russ Altman: Right.
[00:13:54] Kathryn Stoner: And so there are, is a generation that is over, over fifty basically in, um, that all of the former republics of the Soviet Union that lived under something even worse, which was communism.
[00:14:06] Um, and they lived under communism falling apart, which was also particularly difficult. And in different places, varying degrees of market reform, which was very painful, right? Because the Soviet system was, um, you know, if you'd like a small state, it's, it wouldn't have been the place for you because the state decided everything. And it's actually a really sort of fun to describe this to, um, Stanford undergraduates who have no idea who Gorbachev was. Or, you know, or Brezhnev or any of these, uh, sort of blast from the past names that you might remember. Um,
[00:14:41] Russ Altman: I have home videos of Gorbachev from his visit to Stanford, which I cherish. But that's a whole different thing.
[00:14:48] Kathryn Stoner: Yeah. Yeah. He just died a year before last. So, um, they have kind of a different perspective and a conflation even of democracy and market reform. And so if you ever want to descend in this podcast or another time into the sort of public opinion details and is there legitimate support for Putin within Russia, we can do that. But the short answer is, yeah, there is actually.
[00:15:11] So for many of these countries, the experience of democracy, or liberalization. Because none of them ever, except for the Baltics, really get to be consolidated democracies, including Russia. Although they do have some competitive elections in the 1990s, others just in Central Asia with the slight exception of Kyrgyzstan, there's just really no effort.
[00:15:32] But Ukraine is, and Georgia, were a little different, um, in terms of their experiences. And one of the big differences between them and Russia, or even, um, Belarus. But I would say Russian, uh, in particular, is that they have very active civil societies. So, um, you know, Russia, we do see people take to the streets and we have seen people take to the streets en masse. And we certainly saw that in the late 1980s as the Soviet Union was falling apart and we saw it in the nineties, we even saw it in 2020. Um, when, uh, and 2021 before the war when Alexei Navalny, for example, returned, um, and then even after the, uh, in initial invasion in 2022 in February, we saw some demonstrations.
[00:16:21] But that's the end in Russia. And that's largely because, um, Putin has just really cracked down his regime. But in Ukraine, we saw, as I mentioned, this color revolution. Um, and we also see one in Georgia in the early 2000s. And that is people taking to the streets over elections that they felt were corrupt. Um, and in fact were corrupt, and overturning the result and, um, sort of deepening their democracy. They have all had problems with corruption and basically stealing from the state and, um, uh, 'cause that's where a lot of the corruption comes from. Georgia for a while did well attacking petty corruption. Um, Ukraine has done well. Um, it, I think, gets a very bad reputation, um, for corruption. And certainly that was true before this Euromaidan, um, which was the sort of second Georgian, uh, pardon me, Ukrainian revolution in 2014. Um, and Putin responds to that by seizing Crimea and then starting a low boil war uh, in Eastern Ukraine.
[00:17:29] And, um, and so that's really, I think what has caused this, is that, this conflict, is that, as we said at the beginning, um, you know, there is a difference in historical opinion about, um, Ukraine and Russia. And there is, you know, I think a fundamental difference in, within Ukrainian society. Uh, of where, um, most Ukrainians would, like, uh, the future of Ukraine, and that is in Europe. And NATO. And Putin concerned that there is a demonstration effect in that.
[00:18:02] Russ Altman: This is The Future of Everything with Russ Altman. More with Kathryn Stoner, next.
[00:18:17] Welcome back to The Future of Everything. I'm Russ Altman and I'm speaking with Kathryn Stoner from Stanford University.
[00:18:23] In the last segment, Kathryn gave us a great groundwork of the history of Russia. A little bit of the history of the Ukraine, how they think about their relationship with one another, and how this war serves the interests of Vladimir Putin and some Russians.
[00:18:39] In the next segment, she'll tell us why this war has not gone the way the Russians expected. Or really the way anybody expected with the possible exception of the Ukrainians. She'll also give us hope for how this might go in the end and why there are still reasons to think that there will be a better future for Russia.
[00:18:59] So Kathryn, in the last segment you gave us a really good set of background, the history, going even back to like 1000 AD. But now fast forwarding, this war has not gone the way I think anybody expected. Maybe the Ukrainians, but I think many here in America, certainly the Russians with their reputation for a huge, well-run army. This, we're now, you know, well past a year or two. What happened and how should we understand why this war has not been a big success for Russia?
[00:19:32] Kathryn Stoner: Yeah. So we're past two years, as you mentioned. Um, well, so basically we're at a stalemate. There are some incremental changes, um, along the, um, southeastern border, uh, you know, moving the line of conflict, um, even a little further west.
[00:19:51] Um, I think the big surprise here for Putin is, and, uh, certainly, you know, we can relate, um, when we think about our own experience with the Iraq war under the Bush administration. Um, is that, um, Ukrainians didn't want to be liberated, um, from, uh, what he tried to describe to them as, you know, an illegitimate regime. Um, they, um, they didn't want Russian tanks coming in. They didn't want to be part of Russia.
[00:20:22] And I, and so I think he had some bad intelligence. Um, that is the Russian military had bad intelligence. Putin himself had bad intelligence. Um, I think this is, uh, can be a problem with, uh, autocracies. Heck, I used the example of the, um, of the Iraq war because of course that was a problem in a democracy in that case as well. You might remember we were, uh, you know, assured that, uh, the Iraqis would be throwing rose petals, I think, at American tanks as they entered. And in fact, that was not the case as it turned out. And, um, Putin was evidently assured of the same thing. And in fact, Russ, they were so certain, um, the Russian military, that they were going to get this all over within a week that, um, dress uniforms were discovered in the tanks.
[00:21:08] Russ Altman: Wow.
[00:21:08] Kathryn Stoner: That were approaching Kiev, um, in preparation for, yeah, the parades and celebrations that were, um, supposed to ensue.
[00:21:18] Russ Altman: So that was a major, major failure of intelligence.
[00:21:23] Kathryn Stoner: Yes.
[00:21:23] Russ Altman: And so instead, of course, the Ukrainians mounted an incredibly spirited grassroots defense, I guess.
[00:21:31] Kathryn Stoner: Yeah. Yeah, even without having all of the weaponry that we've now given them and, um, our European partners have given them, um, they were able to do that. And so I think that brings us to the second reason it hasn't gone so well. Um, you'll remember in 2014, um, Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and still occupies that.
[00:21:53] Russ Altman: Yes.
[00:21:54] Kathryn Stoner: Um, well, they did that pretty easily, um, there was limited bloodshed. Um, but since then, um, the Ukrainian military retrained. Um, and so Russia saw some of that in, um, Donetsk and Luhansk, those eastern provinces of Ukraine where a low boil war continued between 2014 and the re invasion in 2022, and the Ukrainian military in those eight years was getting training from outside, more money was put into it, and they got better. Um, so I think that was the second major failure, um, in intelligence, um, with Putin, assuming that what they were going to face was what they faced in 2014. And it wasn't. It was a professionalized Ukrainian military.
[00:22:39] Russ Altman: The thing that shocks so many of us is that Putin has not been held to this by the, it doesn't appear that Russian public opinion has turned on him with the deaths of all of these Russian troops. My understanding is that during the Afghanistan, during the Russian Afghanistan kind of debacle, um, there was a ton of domestic unhappiness, uh, and that this contributed to lots of things. Um, what is going on and why aren't the Russians, um, furious about this? And why aren't they holding it against Putin?
[00:23:14] Kathryn Stoner: Well, so, some are furious, um, but not the majority. Um, but, uh, yeah, so just to give you some context, right? In terms of Afghanistan, we didn't exactly see people out in the streets protesting, right?
[00:23:27] Russ Altman: Right.
[00:23:28] Kathryn Stoner: Um, we just saw people kind tuning out. Um, of politics and not believing in the Soviet system. And frankly, they just couldn't afford to keep going in Afghanistan. Right? And so Gorbachev gets them out of that in 1989, after ten years there. What's happened here is in fact, even more men have died in this conflict in just over two years in Ukraine than in Afghanistan and all of the Soviet Union's post.
[00:23:57] Russ Altman: I did not know that.
[00:23:58] Kathryn Stoner: Yes, post Cold War, I mean, post war conflicts. So, all of them combined, already in Ukraine, more Russian troops have died. Um, I saw yesterday a statistic which I'm not, I will throw out but tell you that it's not completely confirmed that roughly two percent of Russian men aged twenty to fifty, um, have either been killed or severely wounded, uh, in Ukraine since the start of the war.
[00:24:27] Um, there is a study by Meduza, uh, and, uh, which is, um, this behind me is, uh, is from them, Meduza, which is, uh, um, an internet, um, newspaper. And media zone, uh, with the BBC that estimates, um, at least a hundred and twenty thousand dead, uh, Russians. Um, but it may be as high as a hundred and forty thousand, and somewhere around, that's dead. And three hundred and fifty thousand in total counting dead, and those so badly injured that they cannot go back to war. So this is huge, right?
[00:24:59] Russ Altman: This is really huge.
[00:25:00] Kathryn Stoner: So why aren't more people upset about this? Well, first of all, we think about two million have left the country, um, completely. Um, either because they had to, well, or they wanted to. Um, then, that's one. So some of the people you might see out on the streets are openly protesting may have, in fact, left.
[00:25:21] Second, since the beginning of the war, Russia's autocracy has gotten even harder. So if for us, you were on the Moscow Metro and you are just sitting there minding your own business, but happened to be wearing a yellow scarf. You, uh, would likely be reported by someone on that train, um, to the police. And that's a significant fine of, you know, five thousand rubles, which may be about half your monthly salary.
[00:25:46] Um, and, um, you know, depending on who you happen to encounter, it could also be jail time. So Russian jails is, uh, um, a friend of mine whose husband happens to still be in jail said, uh, to me in November, when I asked this exact question to her, um, it's the wife of, uh, of, uh, Kara-Murza, who's still in jail and ill, unfortunately. Um, she said, you know, Russian jails are really awful. Um, and that is a disincentive to protest. You don't know what's going to happen to you.
[00:26:17] Russ Altman: Right.
[00:26:17] Kathryn Stoner: Um, if you end up in jail there, because this is not a country that has rule of laws. We see with Evan Gershkovich, um, who's, uh, the Wall Street Journal reporter.
[00:26:26] Russ Altman: Yes.
[00:26:28] Kathryn Stoner: Being used as a political tool there. Um, so that's another thing. Um, and then even, you know, if you do things, um, like, um, for example, there's a case of a woman who, um, was putting messages on price tags, um, about how many people were dying in Ukraine, in, in, uh, Moscow. She's been, you know, arrested. Um, and, you know, she's gone to jail. Um, she had a kid, um, but you know, students will lose their places in universities. Um, you can lose your job. I mean, the knock on effects are long. And then ultimately, um, you can be sent to the front.
[00:27:06] Russ Altman: Right, which is the worst.
[00:27:08] Kathryn Stoner: Yeah, which is kind of an old Soviet era tactic, by the way, right, is what's your worst nightmare? It's worse than jail. You're gonna go fight for a regime you don't believe in and a war you don't believe in. So what is interesting though is, and it's very dangerous, obviously, to answer, you know, there's a lot of what we call preference falsification in surveys, right? So if someone comes to your door and says, and you're in, again, imaginary Russ in Moscow. Hey, um, I'm, you know, I'm a stranger. I'm either calling you or coming to your door and saying, do you support President Putin? Now in the current environment, knowing what I just told you about the scarf on the train,
[00:27:45] Russ Altman: That's an easy one. That's an easy one.
[00:27:47] Kathryn Stoner: What are you going to say Russ?
[00:27:49] Russ Altman: Yes, sir. Go, go Putin.
[00:27:52] Kathryn Stoner: Right. I sure do. Um, but so if you, but if you look at, um, asking that question less directly. Um, and so we have some things called list experiments where, you know, we have a list of names, um, of former Russian or Soviet leaders, um, without Putin, and then we add Putin to the list. You can see, you subtract one from the other and you can see that, okay, maybe it's not as much. Also, if you ask people about happiness, general happiness and their own well-being, it's much lower. Um, if you, um, ask them, and there's another organization called, um, Russian, uh, Field, um, has asked if you could go back in time and, uh, and not start this war, um, would you? And we're getting increasingly close to fifty percent saying they wouldn't have started it, um, to do it all again.
[00:28:46] Russ Altman: So let me, in the last minute, let me just ask, is there a source of hope for Russia, for Russians, and even for non-Russians like Ukrainians and Americans who are watching all this? Is there a reason to be optimistic?
[00:29:02] Kathryn Stoner: In the end, I think there is. I mean, until this war ends and all wars end in a negotiation, we're going to be stuck probably with Putin. Um, he can stay in office. Um, he just was re-elected
[00:29:14] Russ Altman: Yeah.
[00:29:14] Kathryn Stoner: Until 2030 this term and then constitutionally, he can say until 2036. He'll be in his eighties at that point. It's going to be problematic. However, autocracies tend to be a little fragile at the top. And you know, there, I think there's a limit to how much more time Russian business will go on this way. Right now, they're, they have short time horizons and opportunistically, they're making some money. But I think the real hope for Russia, and this comes through even in the dangerous question of, um, do you support the president? Do you support the war? Is really in people under thirty-five in Russia.
[00:29:50] And there we see the highest number of people, even in those circumstances, right? Of, of, uh, consequences being really grave, indicating that no, I don't. And these are people, after all, if you're born after 2000, you've never known another president other than Putin. And you, um, are the YouTube generation, you're the internet generation, Instagram. You know, they're about to cut off YouTube in Russia. They've cut off everything else. These are people who've studied abroad, um, and who want opportunities, right? And who were benefiting from Russia being integrated. So it's Putin's generation that's made their peace with being cut from the West and they are not isolated from the rest of the world, but the younger generation, isn't necessarily happy or contented with that. And so I think that's the hopeful thing. Um, and, uh, in the end, Russians are, are well educated people.
[00:30:38] Russ Altman: Yes. And you mentioned, I think you said, uh, two million people have left the country and do they want to go back?
[00:30:47] Kathryn Stoner: Some do, some don't. Um, you know, most people do. I'm, I should confess here, I was born in Canada, and I came to this country when I was twenty-two. And, you know, even as easy a transition as that is, my children are constantly making fun of my immigrant experience because it wasn't very hard, certainly compared to others. It's still, it's not your country for a while, right? And so when you throw on top of that, as we well know, you have to speak another language, or if your country is a pariah, as Russia is in much of the West, it's even harder, I think.
[00:31:18] So, you know, most people, I think if they could, would want to go back to their own country. And I think that's definitely true, uh, of a generation that's moved. It's also the smartest of Russians that have moved. And, you know, that is our gain. As we've seen from, uh, you know, people like Sergey Brin and others who've come and started wonderful companies here in the United States.
[00:31:40] Russ Altman: Thanks to Kathryn Stoner. That was the future of Russia.
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