Public lecture

Press release — 11 October 2013

Alexander Golts, an independent journalist and an expert on Russian military and security affairs, will give a public lecture entitled

“Military reform in Russia: causes, contradictions and prospects.”

The lecture will be held on 24 October 2013 from 10.15 to 11.45 at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education (Lossi 36-114).

Over the last twenty years  there have been five attempts to reform the military in Russia, all of them failed. What is the reason? Is there any hope for the success of the most recent and the most radical reform launched by former Defense Minister Serdyukov? Will the reform come into conflict with the interests of the most powerful people in Russia, including Vladimir Putin?

Mr. Golts is deputy editor-in-chief of the website ej.ru and a columnist for The Moscow Times. He has previously been deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Yezhenedelnyi Zhurnal, military editor for the news magazine Itogi, and a member of the editorial board of Krasnaya Zvezda. In 2002 and 2003, he was a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His publications include Russia’s Armed Forces: 11 Lost Years (Zaharov, 2004) and Militarism: The Main Obstacle to Russia’s Modernization (Liberal’naya Missiya Foundation, 2005). In 1978 he received a master’s degree in journalism from Lomonossov Moscow State University.

Alexander Golts’s visit to Tartu is co-organised by the Baltic Defense College and the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) at the University of Tartu.