Described as one of America’s most clear-eyed Russia experts, Fiona Hill has studied Putin for decades and has worked as an intelligence officer on Russia and Eurasian affairs for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. She served on the National Security Council under President Donald Trump and was also a key witness in his first impeachment trial. A timely and exclusive conversation with one of the world’s most respected Russian experts and US presidential advisors, Fiona Hill. She shares her expert views on the Ukraine War, Putin’s motives and the future of Russia. She also discussed her unique life journey recorded in her memoir, There is Nothing for You Here.

Speakers:

Kelly Falconer is the founder of the Asia Literary Agency, representing award-winning Asian authors, experts on Asia and writers living in the Australia-Asia region. Before founding the agency she was an editor of fiction and non-fiction, working for book publishers in London, and was the literary editor of the Hong Kong-based Asia Literary Review in 2012. She has contributed to the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) and the Spectator, and has a background as a Korean cryptologic linguist.

Fiona Hill is a senior fellow in the Centre on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy programme at Brookings. She recently served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. She is author of There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century and co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. Prior to joining Brookings, Fiona was director of strategic planning at The Eurasia Foundation in Washington, D.C. From 1991 to 1999, she held a number of positions directing technical assistance and research projects at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, including associate director of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, director of the Project on Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union, and coordinator of the Trilateral Study on Japanese-Russian-U.S. Relations. Fiona holds a master’s in Soviet studies and a doctorate in history from Harvard University where she was a Frank Knox Fellow. She also holds a master’s in Russian and modern history from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and has pursued studies at Moscow’s Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages. Fiona is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.