This week we’d like to introduce a special series recorded in collaboration with FPRI’s BMB Russia, a news brief that brings together the latest on Russia’s economy, politics, business, and political risk environment. 

In this special series hosted by FPRI Fellow and BMB Russia founder, Aaron Schwartzbaum, we’ll explore politics, economics, and their intersection in Russia, Ukraine, and the post-Soviet space and beyond. 

This week Aaron is joined by Isabel Linzer, a research analyst on technology and democracy at Freedom House, and Nick Trickett, a specialist on Russia’s political economy and the author of the Russia section of Freedom Houses’ Nations in Transit report, to discuss the state of Russian democracy, as well as Russia’s electoral and internet freedom.