Jens Siegert - Where is Russia heading?

Scenarios for the time after

Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia for 25 years. There is no end in sight to his dictatorship. He relies on repression at home and is waging a war of annihilation against a neighboring country.
The conflict with the West has long since become a systemic conflict between an illiberal-autocratic ideology and liberal-democratic principles.
As long as Putin is in power, nothing will change. Nevertheless, as far as can be ascertained under unfree conditions, the majority of the population seems to be behind Putin.
Does this mean that too many people in Russia want neither democracy nor peace? Will everything remain the same after Putin?
Or is there a chance that Russia will take a different, more democratic path at some point? 

No matter how the war in Ukraine ends, Russia will not disappear.
We will still have to deal with our big neighbor to the east in the future. This makes it all the more important to look at longer-term developments.

The fact that the systemic conflict has now also reached the West and the transatlantic community itself, with Trump, Orban and others in government,
and many right-wing populist parties on the rise, does not make the task any easier.

Mon, March 17, 2025, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.

Admission is free.

Mark Twain Center for Transatlantic Relations | Römerstraße 162, 69126 Heidelberg, Germany 

Jens Siegert has lived and worked in Moscow since 1993.

He initially reported on Russia as a radio correspondent.
From 1999, he set up the Moscow office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which he headed until 2015.
From 2016 to 2021, Siegert worked on behalf of the European Union to promote exchange
between Russia and the EU despite the growing tensions at various levels.
Book cover of “Where is Russia heading?” by Jens Siegert