How the 1990s Created Putin’s Russia (with Dr. Jeff Hawn)

This week on Russia Unfiltered, Jonny Tickle, Jeremy Morris, and James Pearce are joined by their first ever guest: Dr. Jeff Hawn, research fellow in international history at the London School of Economics. Together, they dive deep into the political chaos of the 1990s and ask one of the biggest questions in modern Russian history: was Putin’s Russia inevitable?The conversation explores Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, the 1993 constitutional crisis, the collapse of Soviet institutions, and the failed attempt to build a law-based democratic state after the fall of the USSR. Jeff argues that Russia was not doomed to authoritarianism, and that many of the political structures shaping Russia today were created during Yeltsin’s struggle for power.The discussion also covers shock therapy, the rise of oligarchic politics, the weakness of Russian federalism, comparisons with Ukraine’s post-Soviet path, and why so many Russians today still see the 1990s as a traumatic decade. Along the way, the hosts debate whether Russia could still experience another democratic opening in the future, or whether the legacy of the 1990s continues to shape the country’s trajectory.This podcast is an independent project and does not represent the views of our employers or affiliated institutions.