American Enterprise Institute
Leon Aron, Director of Russian Studies
The American Enterprise Institute is a conservative U.S. think tank founded in 1938 to promote free markets and individual liberty. Leon Aron is director of Russian studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The following is excerpted from June 13, 2013, testimony before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on “A Dangerous Slide Backwards: Russia’s Deteriorating Human Rights Situation.” In the summer of 2011, I crossed Russia’s 11 time zones, from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad, to interview about two dozen leaders and activists of six nongovernmental organizations and movements. But this was far more than a field…
