Ross Burkhart, a professor of political science in the School of Public Service, was interviewed for the television program “The World” on the Atameken Business Channel in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, on June 19. The report translates as “Moscow & Washington: Thaw or Pragmatism? How Did the Biden – Putin Summit Meeting Turn Out?” and can be streamed below.
In the interview, Burkhart discusses the main achievement of the summit, which was to set a pragmatic tone for future engagements, covering a range of issues that reflect a more modern relationship between the two former cold warriors such as cybersecurity, human rights, the status of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and Ukraine.
“It is misleading to think of the summit as akin to a sporting contest, with a winner and a loser,” he commented after the interview. “Rather, it is more useful to think of it as the beginning of dialogue between the two powerful countries and potentially a thaw in the rather acrimonious relationship between them.”