The EastWest Institute held a three-day meeting of its U.S.-Russia experts steering group on Afghan narcotrafficking in Moscow at the end of June. Co-chaired by EastWest’s vice president, David Firestein, and the institute’s Russia office director, Vladimir Ivanov, the meeting was convened specifically to assess the implications of the current systemic crisis in Russia’s relations with the West on the security situation and counternarcotics efforts in and around Afghanistan. 

The meeting involved leading experts from the EastWest Institute’s bilateral Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghan Narcotrafficking: Ilnur Batyrshin, head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service’s research center; Ivan Safranchuk, associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; Konstantin Sorokin, advisor at the International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring; Ekaterina Stepanova, head of the Peace and Conflict Studies Unit at the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations; George Gavrilis, visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University; and Austin Long, assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The steering group meeting also included Patricia Nicholas, project manager in the International Program at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, whose generous contribution makes possible the work of this EastWest Institute experts group on Afghan narcotrafficking.

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