The Laidlaw Leadership and Research Program promotes ethical leadership and international research around the world—starting with the passionate leaders and learners found on campuses like Cornell. Open to first- and second-year students, the two-year Laidlaw program provides generous support to carry out internationally focused research, develop leadership skills, engage with community projects overseas, and become part of a global network of like-minded scholars from twenty universities worldwide.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu to learn more.

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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Gatty Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Michał Lubina, Associate Professor at the South and Southeast Asia Unit, Institute of Middle and Far East, Jagiellonian University (JU), Kraków, Poland

This Gatty Lecture will take place at the Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seap@cornell.edu.

Abstract

Moscow-Naypyitaw rapprochement represents one of the major consequences of the 2021 Myanmar coup and one of the unexpected outcomes of the Ukraine war. Until then, Russia-Myanmar relations remained good but limited (confined to arms trade, military training, diplomatic support, and nuclear dreaming). The breakthrough came with the fourth military coup in Myanmar, followed by the Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine.

After February 2021, the isolated SAC turned to Moscow, and the Kremlin emerged as the primary international supporter of the Burmese military junta, acting as its political patron, with General Min Aung Hlaing now pilgrimaging to Russia (Moscow, Kazan and Vladivostok, and other places) almost on a routine basis. While Russia was initially still somewhat wary, Moscow’s global (semi-)isolation after the outbreak of the full-scale Ukraine war shifted this dynamic, elevating Myanmar's importance in Russian foreign policy calculations as well. Thus, a mutually convenient asymmetric relationship emerged, and Russia-Myanmar relations have reached an unprecedented level of closeness, unparalleled in their bilateral history. This is best illustrated by the personal chemistry between their leaders, even if expressed is such extraordinary ways as in March 2025, when Min Aung Hlaing compared Vladimir Putin to a rat king which was meant to be an unusual way to emphasize the political friendship with the Russian leader.

The unexpected and unusual combination of Russia and Myanmar caught observers by surprise. Why have these two countries, so geographically and culturally distant, with limited past contacts, became so close? What triggered their rapprochement? And what does it matter – to both Moscow and Naypyidaw, to the region, and even to the world? What are the consequences of this emerging partnership? And where is China in all this? What exact role does Beijing play in this unexpected Naypyidaw-Moscow rapprochement?

This talk will try to answer these questions.

About the Speaker

Michał Lubina is an associate professor at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. He is the author of eleven books, including seven on Myanmar, and three on Russia-China relations. His most important English-language books are “A Political Biography of Aung San Suu Kyi: A Hybrid Politician” (Routledge, 2020) and “The Moral Democracy” (2019), translated into Burmese and published in Yangon in 2021.

Dr. Veronica Anghel works at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations. As an assistant professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies she co-directs the European Governance and Politics Programme and leads the ‘Global Risks to the EU’ project. Her current research focuses on the European Union’s geopolitical role in the global order, and European integration and enlargement. She is also a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and an Associate Editor for the Journal of European Public Policy. She has been awarded the Inaugural ‘Rising Star’ Award of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in 2021.

Previously, Anghel was a Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where she taught courses on Risk in International Relations and Economy, and European Politics. She held fellowships at Stanford University (Fulbright), the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the EUI (Max Weber), and the Institute for Human Sciences Vienna (Europe’s Futures Fellow). Her research has been published in, among others, West European Politics, Political Science Quarterly, the Journal of European Public Policy, Political Communication, Foreign Affairs, the European Journal of Political Research. Her book ‘From Club to Commons: Enlargement, Reform and Sustainability in European Integration’ (Cambridge University Press 2025, with Erik Jones) proposes a new theory of European integration. She is the co-editor of Developments in European Politics 3 (Bloomsbury Academic) and sits on the board of the Council for European Studies (CES).

Anghel has practical experience working in international relations and politics from the time she served as a foreign affairs advisor for the Romanian Presidency, covering the country’s relations to NATO and the United States at the time of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. She was selected by the US Department of State to joint its International Visitor Leadership Program and has trained U.S. diplomats on European politics through the Foreign Service Institute.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies

In the late 1990s, a new private military company (PMC) from South Africa, Executive Outcomes, intervened in Angola and Sierra Leone, where the company's operations ushered in a ceasefire. Still, when Executive Outcome's CEO, Eeben Barlow, declared his PMC capable of doing "what blue helmets could not," few in the peacekeeping and NGO world took him seriously. Twenty years later, after the rise of the Russian PMC Wagner Group, peacekeeping and mercenaries are direct competitors. Countries who traditionally contributed soldiers to the UN, such as Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, now market their troops to Exxon and the Gaza Board of Peace. Whether UN peacekeeping can survive this latest round in the privatization of warfare remains to be seen.

About the speaker

John Lechner graduated from the Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. At Georgetown, John focused on security issues in Central Africa and the Sahel; Turkey; Russia, and the former Soviet Union. He is an expert on Russia’s growing influence in Africa. He speaks fluent Russian; advanced French, Turkish, and Georgian; and conversational Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), Chechen, German, and Sango (the lingua franca of the Central African Republic).

After working in finance for several years, John decided to leverage his language skills and significant experience living abroad—especially in Russia and Europe—for a career in international affairs. After arriving in Washington DC, he took an internship with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), analyzing and publishing articles on Turkish domestic politics, security, and foreign relations.

While attending Georgetown he has continued to work as a freelance journalist, covering issues related to language, history, culture, and politics in eastern Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, the Sahel, and the Central African Republic. He is an expert on the history, languages, and politics of Central Africa, Turkey, and the former Soviet Union. You can find his articles published in Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, Kyiv Post, The Diplomat, Africa is a Country, African Arguments, The National Interest, and Defense One, among others.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies

Co-sponsor
Institute for European Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies

Go global in summer 2027! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Go global in summer 2027! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Go global in summer 2027! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.