WASHINGTON (March 21, 2022) —Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine with the belief that Ukrainians lacked an autonomous identity as an independent nation. Putin’s miscalculation ignored the history of Ukraine.
Thom Shanker is the director of GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs’ Project for Media and National Security. He was formerly foreign editor of The Chicago Tribune and later its Moscow correspondent from 1985-1988, and again from 1990-1992. Shanker has met Vladimir Putin about a dozen times, whom he described as having the “perfect gray man face” that you can “miss in a room of two.” In 1997 he joined The New York Times where he served as Pentagon corresponding for 13 years with extensive time embedded with American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Shanker covered the start of the Gorbachev era to the death of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the communist empire in Eastern Europe. In a recent talk "From Perestroike to Putin" he discussed the history of post-Soviet Russia, from Yeltsin to Putin, which he explained “As much as anything Ukraine’s vote for independence in August of 1991, put us on the path we see today.”
If you are looking for context on this matter or would like to speak with Professor Shanker anytime, please contact:
GW Media Relations
[email protected]
202-994-6460
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