This week we’re going to take a look at Russia and the future of the U.S.-Russian relationship, in three chapters: • After Putin (at the 1:30 mark); • Before Putin (17:14); • Now what (28:16). We'll revisit a battle against the Mongols 639 years ago, move ahead to Putin’s “zoo” of scary long-range weapons unveiled last year, and all the way forward to the challenges that come well after the Department of Justice’s Trump-Russia probe here in 2019. Our guests this week are Michael Carpenter, Senior Director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington; Mark Galeotti, Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London; Pavel Podvig, a physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; and Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Our music is by Terry Devine-King, Barrie Gledden, Richard Lacy, David Kelly, Helen Jane Long, Philip Guyler, Tim Garland and Sam Wedgwood — via AudioNetwork.com. Related reading: "We Need to Talk About Putin," a 2019 book by Mark Galeotti (link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G2VVRVB/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2); "Kulikovo, 1380: A Battle Almost Lost in Myth," a recent essay also by Mark Galeotti (https://ospreypublishing.com/blog/Kulikovo_1380/); and "Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war," a report from Alan Robock of Rutgers and Owen Brian Toon of the University of Colorado-Boulder, here: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSAD.pdf