Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe
“Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe”
Speaker: Bechev, D. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Date: 18 September 2018
Speaker Session Preview
SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Dimitar Bechev (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) as a part of its SMA EUCOM Speaker Series. During his presentation, Dr. Bechev spoke about Russia’s operations in Southeast Europe, particularly in the Balkan states. He stated that there have been various indications that Russian opposition groups have been activated to politically influence nations in the Balkans. He proceeded to discuss Russia’s primary strategic goal in the region and how its attempts to influence public opinion in the Balkan states differ from its attempts to influence former Soviet states. Dr. Bechev also detailed how Russia economically, politically, and socially influences and manipulates the Balkan states through trade and business activities, politics, and media. To conclude his presentation, Dr. Bechev spoke about why Russia is influential in the Balkans, how the pro-Russia sentiment in the Balkans is not necessarily an anti-US sentiment, and how there are currently limits to Russia’s influence in the region.
Biography
Dr. Dimitar Bechev is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, a research fellow at the Center of Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the director of the European Policy Institute, a think tank based in Sofia, Bulgaria.
He has published extensively—in both academic and policy formats—on EU foreign relations, the politics of Turkey and the Balkans, Russian foreign policy, and energy security. His book Rival Power (Yale University Press, 2017) examines Russia’s role in Southeast Europe, including the Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey.
Dr. Bechev has held research and teaching positions at Oxford and Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, as well as visiting fellowships at Harvard and the London School of Economics. From 2010 to 2014, he served as head of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) office in Sofia.
A frequent contributor to Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera Online, Oxford Analytica, POLITICO, and EUObserver, Dr. Bechev’s commentary has also appeared in leading outlets such as the Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford.
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