In the latest episode of Expert Opinions - Russia, Eurasia, a podcast from the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, Masha Udensiva-Brenner interviews Matthew Murray about recently-imprisoned Russian opposition leader and political activist Alexei Navalny and his transparency efforts in Russia. Murray started doing business in St. Petersburg in 1991 and became involved in business ethics and anticorruption efforts there.

Masha Udensiva-Brenner tells the story of New Yorker staff writer Adam Davidson’s two investigations into Trump Organization deals in Baku, Azerbaijan and Batumi, Georgia.

In 2011, Donald Trump and Georgia’s then-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, signed an agreement to build a Trump Tower in the Georgian port city, Batumi. Saakashvili exerted considerable effort to promote the tower, bringing Trump to Georgia in 2012 for a PR tour and lavish ceremony. But when Trump was elected president in 2016, the tower still hadn’t been built.

A podcast from the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.
 

A podcast from the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, hosted by Masha Udensiva-Brenner

A podcast from the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, hosted by Masha Udensiva-Brenner