Can history explain Putin’s war, Sergey Radchenko?

Few historians illuminate the inner workings of Soviet and Russian foreign policy with the clarity and archival depth of Sergey Radchenko. Drawing on unprecedented access to Communist Party documents, Radchenko has rewritten key chapters of the Cold War, tracing the ambitions, insecurities, and delusions that drove leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev, which still echo in Vladimir Putin’s Russia today.

In this episode of Future Discontinuous, hosts Misha Glenny and Eva Konzett explore Stalin’s competing quests for security, resources, and legitimacy, Khrushchev’s nuclear brinkmanship from Berlin to Cuba, and the unraveling of Soviet power in Eastern Europe. Together with their guest, they examine how China emerged as Moscow’s greatest geopolitical nightmare, how misunderstandings shaped the end of the Cold War, and why Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has become a catastrophic gamble for all involved. They also unpack early, little-known peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow—and what recent diplomatic maneuvers reveal about the shifting global balance of power.

Sergey Radchenko is a Russian-British historian who currently teaches at the Henry Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. Radchenko grew up on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East before studying in the United States and the United Kingdom. He is the author of several books about the Cold War and has published extensively on nuclear history and Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. His latest book, To Run the World (Cambridge University Press, 2024), won the prestigious Lionel Gelber Prize in Canada this year. He regularly writes for publications such as The Guardian.

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