Russians head to the polls in a three-day election that’s sure to give President Vladimir Putin another six-year term. According to Reuters, “the 71-year-old Kremlin chief dominates Russia's political landscape and none of the other three candidates on the ballot paper presents any credible challenge.”
Thom Shanker is the director of the Project for Media & National Security at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. He was named director after a nearly quarter-century career with The New York Times, including 13 years as Pentagon correspondent covering the Department of Defense, overseas combat operations and national security policy. Before joining The Times, he was foreign editor of The Chicago Tribune. He spent five years as The Tribune's Moscow correspondent, covering the start of the Gorbachev era to the death of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the communist empire in Eastern Europe.
“Any election in an authoritarian state, in which the outcome is pre-determined, has elements that are important to understand, both for Putin's domestic population and for a global citizenry,” Shanker says.
If you would like to speak with Shanker, please contact GW Senior Media Relations Specialist Cate Douglass at cdouglass
gwu [dot] edu (cdouglass[at]gwu[dot]edu).
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