In a wide ranging conversation that aims to provide a strategic overview of the former Soviet Union as its constituent countries reconfigure their relationships with each other, with the Russian government and with the rest of the world - Ivan Vejvoda and Thomas de Waal reckon with the complex dynamics of power and shifting influences a year on from the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. From the EU facing societies of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to the central Asian countries with strong links to China to the ebb and flow of the trade routes and border policies that shape the geopolitics of the world, de Waal and Vejvoda discuss the events, tensions and historical forces that are defining the twenty first century. A senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, where he specializes in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region, Tom de Waal has written extensively about the area, including books on the Caucasus, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Chechnya and the Armenian Genocide. He has worked as a journalist for both print and BBC radio and worked as a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.