Foreign Affairs committee  That's an excellent question, and thanks for reading me so carefully. You have it just right. The point is somewhat surprising, that Putin does not intend to raise the economy; he intends to get his political legitimacy from other sources. All these authoritarian rulers do not r

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, with regard to Hungary, of course Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has very much turned to Mr. Putin. We're seeing that he has changed the constitution in a not very democratic fashion, getting strong party control over all kinds of state institutions, including t

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, happily so. Basically, this is where they start from. What Viktor Orban has done since 2010 has not been fully reflected there. I would only put Orban as pro-Russian. I would not agree that the other three Visegrad countries are pro-Russian in any regard. In the Czech Republ

Foreign Affairs committee  I would be happy to talk on this. I have been deeply involved in the Ukrainian reforms. I've written two books and edited another two about Ukrainian economic reforms throughout the years. What I would say is that the current reform wave has been enormously impressive. Ukraine a

Foreign Affairs committee  My response is that the kind of financial links Mr. Trump has with Russia are a really big question. We know at least 10 major dubious people from the former Soviet Union have bought apartments in Trump Towers in Miami Beach or in New York. This has all been publicized. Presiden

Foreign Affairs committee  To begin with, I think that all the EU countries, including Bulgaria and Romania, are safe. In fact, according to Transparency International, Bulgaria and Romania are not more corrupt than the old EU countries of Greece and Italy. So we should not really worry about Bulgaria. It'

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, members of the standing committee, thank you for inviting me to talk to you today about this very important topic. I will focus on your questions as they have been posed. I will focus on Russia's intentions, and also on what we can see so far from the Trump administ