Anna Libak: Putin's World

Anna Libak examines the background to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the so-called people's republics in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. The EU and USA view Russian aggression as a threat to the security architecture built after the Cold War. From the Russian perspective, the counter-argument is that the US and its allies exploited the Soviet Union's collapse to establish Western dominance - what Putin has called "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century". The question is how relations deteriorated so severely that we must look back before Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 to find a comparable low point.

The event also addresses the values struggle between east and west. Putin portrays the West as weak and morally degenerate - preoccupied with gender identity, woke politics and consumerism - while Russia allegedly represents tradition, stability and strength. Has this become Trump's narrative too? And how threatened is liberal democracy if the world is divided between authoritarian superpowers?

Anna Libak is foreign editor at Weekendavisen, author and one of three hosts of the P1 podcast Damerne først. She holds a cand.mag. degree in Russian and social studies from Aarhus University and has followed Russia since becoming a language officer in the defence force in the late 1980s. She has covered the country for three newspapers, and a correspondent posting for Berlingske Tidende from 1999-2003 resulted in the book Rusland på røde plader. She has also hosted the DR programme Sidste nyt fra Østfronten.