Watch the event live at http://www.c-span.org/video/?407390-1/discussion-russias-domestic-outlook

The Center on Global Interests and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center present:

A discussion with:

• Stanislav Kucher, journalist, talk show host and columnist, Snob.ru

• Natella Boltyanskaya, Echo of Moscow and Novaya Gazeta; Starovoitova Fellow, Kennan Institute

• Anton Ryzhov, Committee Against Torture; Starovoitova Fellow, Kennan Institute

Moderator: Nikolai Zlobin, President and Founder, Center on Global Interests

As Russia prepares for parliamentary elections this fall, the country's domestic situation remains in flux. An economic crisis at home and tensions with the West abroad have raised the stakes for an election which the Kremlin, for the first time, wants to make truly legitimate. Please join us for a discussion with three distinguished Russian journalists and political activists, who will share an insider's perspective on the country's political situation, the state of the media, and the future of the opposition after Nemtsov.

A Q&A with the audience will follow. Light refreshments will be served.

About the Speakers:

Natella Boltyanskaya is a journalist, a columnist featured in several magazines and newspapers from 1991 to the present, and has hosted numerous radio and television programs in Russia. She is the author, producer and anchorwoman of a 36-episode documentary series about the history of Soviet dissidents entitled "Parallels, People, Events." Mrs. Boltyanskaya is a civil activist, poet, and songwriter who is passionate about civil rights. In 2014, she was awarded the Laureate prize by the Moscow Helsinki Group for contributions in the Human Rights field.

Stanislav Kucher is a Russian liberal journalist, television and radio host, and filmmaker. He is currently a columnist for the online project Snob.ru, as well as Editor-in-Chief of multimedia projects at Vokrug Sveta (“Around the World”), Russia’s oldest and largest circulation monthly magazine, and the host of the monthly talk show Krugly Stol (“Round Table”). He previously served as the chief political commentator on KommersantFM radio and as editor-in-chief of The National Geographic Traveler’s Russian edition. In 2002, he produced and filmed the documentary Russkie Grabli (“Russian Rake”), which received a number of professional awards and was screened at the Human Rights Festival in Kiev, yet was never shown on Russian TV. From 2002-2004 he was anchor and host of the late-night political commentary show “The 25th Hour,” which was suspended after a series of stories criticizing the actions of Russian special forces in Beslan. From 2012-2014 Mr. Kucher served as political adviser to Russian presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov and was one of the founders of the Civic Platform party, where he served as a committee member. He is currently a member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, a body of public figures from the NGO, media and arts communities that advises the President on the protection of human rights and civil society in Russia.

Anton Ryzhov is a Russian human rights defender. Since 2007 he has been a lawyer for the prominent Russian NGO Committee Against Torture, which monitors instances of police brutalityand provides legal assistance and medical rehabilitation to victims of torture. An expert in international law, Anton represents torture and abduction victims before the European Court of Human Rights. Since 2010 Mr. Ryzhov has spent more than 1.5 years in total performing field work in the most troubled region of Russia – the Chechen Republic. Since 2013 he has been visiting correction facilities and police stations as a member of the Public Oversight Commission, a special body created to monitor detainees’ human rights. In 2007-2013 Mr. Ryzhov was a lecturer at the Law Faculty of Nizhniy Novgorod State University. He has published more than two dozen works on various legal topics.

Nikolai Zlobin is a political analyst, historian, and president of the Center on Global Interests. Prior to founding CGI in 2012, Dr. Zlobin served as director of Russian and Asian programs at the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C. and was the founder and director of the international news agency Washington ProFile as well as director of Russian and Asian Programs at the Center for Defense Information. In the early 1990s, he was a political adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin. Since moving to the United States in 1993, he has held teaching positions at Georgetown, Stanford, and Harvard universities, and was a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. In 1993, he founded and served as the editor of Demokratizatsiya, the first academic journal on post-Soviet politics and democratization that is still published today. Since 2004, Nikolai has also been a permanent member of the Valdai International Discussion Club. Dr. Zlobin’s writings have appeared in The New York Times, Vedomosti, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and Izvestia. He holds a BA and MA in History and a PhD in Public Administration from Moscow State University.