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Andrei Illarionov, Former Economic Policy Advisor to President Vladimir Putin, to Speak at W&L

Andrei Illarionov, former economic policy advisor to President Vladimir Putin, will speak at Washington and Lee University on Monday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. in Northen Auditorium.

The title of Illarionov’s talk is “Russo-Ukrainian War.” It is free and open to the public and sponsored by the Russian Area Studies Department.

The talk will be broadcast live online.

Illarionov is a senior fellow in the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

On April 12, 2000, Illarionov assumed the office of Putin’s senior economic adviser within the Russian presidential administration, and, in May 2000, he became the personal representative of the Russian president in the G8. He played an important role in introducing the low 13 percent flat- income tax in Russia, in repaying the Russian foreign debt, in creating the petroleum revenues-based Stabilization Fund of the Russian Federation and in bringing Russia’s full-fledged membership in the political G8.

In 2005, Illarionov offered his resignation in protest against the government, saying that Russia was no longer politically free. “It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic,” Illarionov said, according to the BBC News.

Illarionov coauthored several economic programs for Russian governments and has written three books and more than 300 articles on Russian economic and social policies.

He received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg University.