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As Pres. Trump and Pres. Putin meet in Alaska to negotiate a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, I speak with scholars of Russia and ask them these questions:
►Who is Putin?
►What event had the biggest impact on his worldview?
►Is he an ideological man?
►Does he love Russia?
►Is he a risktaker?
►Does he fear that Russians will revolt against him?
►Does he want to be remembered in history as Putin the Great? Actually, that would be Vladimir the Great.
🚩About My Guest Scholars:
Dr. Kathryn Stoner. I interviewed her in March 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and while the Covid-19 pandemic was a threat. She was then a scholar at Stanford University and had published an important book, Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order. Here is our full interview.
Dr. Mark Steinberg. I interviewed him in April 2022, when there was talk of overthrowing Putin. Dr. Steinberg is professor emeritus at the Department of History of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published extensively about Russia, including Voices of Revolution, 1917; The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921; and also Russian Utopia. Here is our full interview.
🚩My Recommendations:
►S2E8: Wars in Ukraine, Dr. David R. Stone
►S2E5: Ukraine's National Identity, Dr. Catherine Wanner
►S5E39: Crimea and Crimean Tatars, Dr. Greta Uehling
Image Attribution:
Vladimir Putin, July 14, 2025. By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0. Image cropped on its sides to Zoom in on Mr. Putin.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
🚩Support My Program:
🚩Click here and join our other supporters of the History Behind News podcast. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
More than 200 scholar interviews and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
By Adel Aali, History Behind News5
7777 ratings
As Pres. Trump and Pres. Putin meet in Alaska to negotiate a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, I speak with scholars of Russia and ask them these questions:
►Who is Putin?
►What event had the biggest impact on his worldview?
►Is he an ideological man?
►Does he love Russia?
►Is he a risktaker?
►Does he fear that Russians will revolt against him?
►Does he want to be remembered in history as Putin the Great? Actually, that would be Vladimir the Great.
🚩About My Guest Scholars:
Dr. Kathryn Stoner. I interviewed her in March 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and while the Covid-19 pandemic was a threat. She was then a scholar at Stanford University and had published an important book, Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order. Here is our full interview.
Dr. Mark Steinberg. I interviewed him in April 2022, when there was talk of overthrowing Putin. Dr. Steinberg is professor emeritus at the Department of History of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published extensively about Russia, including Voices of Revolution, 1917; The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921; and also Russian Utopia. Here is our full interview.
🚩My Recommendations:
►S2E8: Wars in Ukraine, Dr. David R. Stone
►S2E5: Ukraine's National Identity, Dr. Catherine Wanner
►S5E39: Crimea and Crimean Tatars, Dr. Greta Uehling
Image Attribution:
Vladimir Putin, July 14, 2025. By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0. Image cropped on its sides to Zoom in on Mr. Putin.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
🚩Support My Program:
🚩Click here and join our other supporters of the History Behind News podcast. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
More than 200 scholar interviews and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.

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