Russia Rising – First Episodes
Episode #1 – Jan 28 – Hunting for Internet Trolls
On the first episode of Russia Rising podcast, we’ll visit the former home of the notorious Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg, which the United States accuses of meddling in its 2016 presidential election. We’ll investigate how those Russian internet trolls operate and whether other countries, specifically Canada, are targeted too.
Contact: Twitter: @JeffSempleGN E-mail: RussiaRising@Curiouscast.ca
Guests:
Vitaly Bespalov – Former Russian Troll
Andrey Zakharov – Russian Investigative Journalist, BBC Russian Twitter: @skazal_on Dan Treisman – Professor of Political Science at the University of California and author of the book ‘The New Autocracy,’ Twitter: @dstreisman
Patrick Warren – an Associate Professor of Economics who has been at Clemson since 2008. Twitter: @plwarre Yaroslav Nilov, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Instagram: @yaroslavnilov
Episode #2 – Hackers
On this episode of Russia Rising, we’ll visit the front-lines of a growing cyber-war, where hackers from Russia, Iran, China and other countries are battling for control of everything from your online bank account to your city’s hydro grid. To understand how these hackers operate, we’ll speak with a guy who used to be one: Alexandr Varskoy is a former Russian hacker. We’ll also explore the underworld of financial crime cyber, by speaking with Nicholas Palmer, the Director of International Business at GroupIB, a private cyber-security firm based in Russia. Finally, we’ll explore Cyber warfare with Satyamoorthy Kabilan a leading expert in cyber security who has advised the Canadian government.
Guests:
Alexandr Varskoy, former hacker
Nicholas Palmer, the Director of International Business at GroupIB
Dr. Satyamoorthy Kabilan, Vice President, Policy at the Public Policy Forum
Episode #3 – The Rise of Vladimir Putin
On this episode of Russia Rising, we’ll take a closer look at the man who has ruled over the world’s largest country for nearly two decades: Vladimir Putin was a poor kid from a tough neighbourhood who became a Russian KGB agent, a billionaire and the country’s longest-serving leader since Stalin. Along the way, he’s also been accused of committing a laundry list of atrocities. To truly understand what motivates Putin — why he does what he does — we need to know where he came from. To that end, we’ll speak with Arkady Ostrovsky, the Russian editor for the Economist magazine and Steven Lee Myers, a Putin Biographer and veteran journalist with the New York Times. We’ll explore Putin’s rapid rise to power in an interview with Jeremy Kinsman, Canada’s former ambassador to Russia. We’ll also attempt to answer the question “what is Putin’s motivation?” by speaking with a former KGB agent named Alexander Vassiliev. Vassiliev was recruited by the KGB in the 1980s and attended the same spy training school at around the same time as Putin.
Contact: Twitter: @JeffSempleGN E-mail: RussiaRising@Curiouscast.ca
Guests:
Arkady Ostrovsky, Russian editor for the Economist magazine, Author of ‘The Invention of Russia’ @ArkadyOstrovsky
Steven Lee Myers, New York Times Correspondent, Author of ‘The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin’ @stevenleemyers
Jeremy Kinsman, Former Canadian Ambassador to the Russian Federation
Alexander Vassiliev, Former KGB Agent, Co-author of ‘Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America’
