By host Tom Ashbrook:

In the grand halls of St Petersburg this weekend, the fighting in the Mideast has swamped the G8 agenda of big power leaders. But it has not disguised the new and growing distance between Russia and the USA or quieted the raging debate in Washington over “who lost Russia?”

In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, hopes were high for a Russia transformed from Cold War enemy into democratic, free-market ally. Or, at worst, a post-Soviet Russia marginalized on the world stage.

Now instead, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is oil and gas-rich, democracy’s in the backseat, and a defiant Moscow is clashing with the US on Iran, the Mideast and more. There’s talk of a new cold war.

Hear about who lost Russia – and what now?

Guests:

Anatole Lieven, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of “America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism.” (2004);
Stephen Sestanovich, George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and Director of “Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do” Task Force.

Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, and senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Maxim D. Shrayer, Professor of Russian and English and Chair of the Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages at Boston College, and editor of “Autumn in Yalta: A Novel and Three Stories.”