Valdai Club

On November 17, at 5:00 p.m. Moscow time (GMT+3), the Valdai Discussion Club and the Argentine Council on Foreign Relations (CARI) will hold a joint discussion, titled “Stability and Security in the Western and Eastern Hemispheres: Views from Russia and Argentina”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has become the biggest stress factor for states around the world. Latin America was hit hardest by the coronavirus, according to the IMF. The pandemic exacerbated long-standing social problems, which resulted in mass protests in Chile, Costa Rica, Bolivia and Venezuela. In Peru, President Martin Vizcarra was impeached; among other things, he was accused of ineffectiveness in his reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the United States, the current year has also been marked by riots and protests. In the current environment, Argentina remains one of the few islands of stability in the Western Hemisphere.

In the Eastern Hemisphere, against the background of the tense situation caused by the coronavirus, international crises have worsened, many of them close to the borders of Russia. For more than a month, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a new round of fierce battles for Nagorno-Karabakh. A wave of terrorist attacks swept across Europe. Fears are mounting over the fate of Afghanistan, where the American presence is dwindling and the peace process between the government and the Taliban is far from over. Instability persists in the Middle East and many other parts of the Old World.

Why did the pandemic trigger protests in a number of Latin American countries? How will the situation develop further? What measures could Latin American states take to strengthen regional stability? How has the pandemic affected security trends in the Eastern Hemisphere? Has it played a decisive role in the development of the crises in recent months? How can Russia and Argentina contribute to strengthening global security? The participants in the discussion will answer these and other questions.

Speakers:

• Andrzej Habarta, Senior Research Fellow at MGIMO, Editor-in-Chief of the “Cuadernos Iberoamericanos” Journal
• Ricardo Ernesto Lagorio, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Argentine Republic to the Russian Federation (2017–2020), Advisory Member of the Argentinean Council of Foreign Relations (CARI)
• Nikolai Silaev, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Studies of the Caucasus, MGIMO University
• Lila Roldán Vázquez, Director of the Contemporary Eurasian Affairs Group, Advisory Member, CARI
• Sebastian Villero, CARI Consultant, Lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires and at the Center for the Macroeconomic Study of Argentina (UCEMA)

Moderator:

• Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Club

Working languages: Russian, English

For accreditation, you must fill out the form on our website, indicate your personal mobile number and have the WhatsApp application installed.

Please send questions for speakers to press@valdaiclub.com or via WhatsApp to the number: +79269307763. Be sure to include your name and title, as well as the name of the speaker to whom the question is being addressed. Questions will be asked during the Q&A session.

A link to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms used by the Valdai Club: on the website, on Facebook, Vkontakte, Instagram, and Telegram.