Please join us on Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. for a timely and important presentation by Dr. James Hatt on “Russia: The Inevitability of Now.” This program will be held in person as well as on Zoom.
From a local bureaucrat in St. Petersburg to President of Russia, Vladimir Putin has been insistent and clear that declarations of independent statehood by lands he considers inherently Russian resulted from the actions of a malevolent America. Since the Chechen war of 1999, Western powers vacillated between willful ignorance and timid acceptance of Putin’s Kremlin, generating a momentum of inevitability to now, the second invasion of Ukraine since 2014.
About our speaker: James Hatt is an English Barrister who joined the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was seconded to Cable and Wireless plc, one of three companies privatized by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that retained a “Golden Share” controlled by the Government, which allowed for state guidance on how the Company would develop its overseas operations.
In 1989 James went into Gorbachev’s USSR and negotiated the first agreements on Soviet/European communications. He stayed throughout the Yeltsin era, working across Russia and the former Soviet world, with multiple ventures in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Siberia, and Vladivostok in far eastern Russia. His satellite joint venture in Moscow developed a pan Russia capability in conjunction with the current Minister of Defence, General Shoigu. James developed cellular interests in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.
In 1990, James made his inaugural visit to St. Petersburg where he met Vladimir Putin, then advisor on international affairs to the Mayor Sobchak. Over the next 25 years, James had numerous interactions with Putin, his advisors, and associates in St. Petersburg, Moscow, London, and Zurich.
James and his wife have lived in Lenox for 20 years.