Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West: Maximilian Hess in conversation w/ Andrei Movchan

Join us on Thursday, 14 September at 6pm either in person or online to hear a discussion about the stages, layers and crucial nuances of the economic conflict between Russia and the West, led by the United States, that has been waged for the last decade and escalated significantly following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Maximilian Hess, the author of Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West will discuss the findings from his book and the future of this conflict with Andrei Movchan, economist, financial manager and the founding partner of Movchan’s Group.

The conversation will cover various aspects of contemporary international economics, including the financial and energy markets, capital and resource infrastructures, global policies, legal agreements and those tools that economists use to counter the Russian aggression in Ukraine and to sanction the culprits.

Starting from the introduction of the Magnitsky Act in 2012 and the interference of Russia in the Ukrainian revolution of 2014, Hess comes to the broad significance of the current conflict for the global economic hegemony of the United States as well as the ambition of China as its rival. Hess and Movchan will share their opinions on the current state of the Russian economy and the ability of the Russian leadership to counter the effects of economic sanctions for the time being.

About the speakers

Maximilian Hess is a political risk analyst and the founder of Enmetena Advisory. He is also a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Kazakhstan Futures Fellow at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs. Economic War (Hurst, 2023) is his first book.

Andrei Movchan is an economist, investment manager and the founding partner of Movchan’s Group. He was formerly Executive Director of Troika Dialog Investment Bank, founder and Chairman of the Board of Renaissance Investment Management Group, founder of the Third Rome investment company  and a former head of the Carnegie Center’s Economic Policy Program.

About the book

Selected as one of the ‘Books to Read in 2023’ in the Financial Times

Vladimir Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine, in 2014, set off a global economic clash, as the West used its clout with international markets to deter and penalise the Kremlin. The battlelines of this ‘war by other means’ traversed a series of deep economic connections, built up during Russia’s oil, gas and commodities boom: global equity and capital markets, and transnational kleptocracy.

Maximilian Hess’s startling book lifts the lid on Russia’s response to Western sanctions, and the ensuing skirmishes in London’s courts, on Swiss trading desks and in boardrooms in New Delhi. He explores how pipelines, mines, loans and crypto-markets were weaponised. This narrative sets the stage for Putin’s all-out assault on Kyiv in February 2022, which turned financial, food and fuel markets into bona fide battlefields, bringing the fight into everyone’s home, from Pennsylvania to Pakistan.

Rather than a ‘new Cold War’, we are witnessing a conflict over finance, energy and capital markets. How such economic warfare turns out will determine the future of liberalism and democracy; it will also set a precedent for economic relations between the West and China, as the two diverge into rival spheres of influence and power.