In Conversation: Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman with Greg Olear

The Ukrainian Institute of America is honored to host the visit of Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for the launch of his new book, The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.

The program will take place on Monday, February 24, 2025 at 6 PM and will be followed by a book signing and light reception.

Alexander Vindman will be joined in conversation by Greg Olear, a podcaster, author and journalist known for his work on politics, history, national security, foreign affairs, organized crime, dirty money, global corruption, and the fight for democracy.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.

In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America’s mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers’ fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.

Enlivened by firsthand accounts and behind-the-scenes interviews with leading Washington and international policymakers and culminating in the shocking brutality of Putin’s invasions of Ukraine, the book exposes the follies of western foreign policymaking, sources of the dangerous return of Russian imperialism, and proscribes how it can be contained.

Alexander Vindman, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, was the director for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Russia on the White House’s National Security Council. Previously, he served as the Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as an attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia. While on the Joint Staff, he co-authored the National Military Strategy Russia Annex and was the principal author for the Global Campaign for Russia. He is a senior fellow for the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Pritzker Military Fellow at the Lawfare Institute, executive board member for the Renew Democracy Initiative, senior advisor for VoteVets, and the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Here, Right Matters.

Greg Olear is the author of seven books, including Dirty Rubles, which Salon called “required reading for all Americans;” the recently-released essay collection The Age of Unreality; and the novel Fathermucker, an LA Times bestseller. Since 2019, he has written a column three times a week at his Substack, PREVAIL, where he covers politics, history, national security, foreign affairs, organized crime, dirty money, global corruption, and the fight for democracy. He is the host of the interview podcast “Prevail with Greg Olear” and the co-host of the weekly live show The Five 8. His work has appeared in Slate, Salon, Newsweek, Dame Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Hudson Valley Magazine. He is on BlueSky @gregolear.