📅 April 29 2025

🕑 09:30 – 12:00

📍 European Parliament, SPINELLI 5E2

🎙️ Hosted by MEP Rihards Kols (ECR-Latvia) & ELNET (European Leadership Network)

🔗 Register here

In the face of growing authoritarian cooperation between Russia and Iran, this high-level policy event will bring together experts, policymakers, and security practitioners to assess the implications of this evolving threat for Europe’s security.

With a particular focus on the Baltics, Israel, and Ukraine, the conference will address how Russian and Iranian malign activities — from cyber and intelligence operations to military and energy coercion — endanger European interests, NATO cohesion, and democratic resilience.

Speakers:

• James Sherr OBE– Honorary Fellow of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn and an Associate Fellow (and former Head) of the Russia and Eurasia Programme of Chatham House, London. Previously, he was a member of the Social Studies Faculty of Oxford University (1993-2012), a Senior Lecturer at the Soviet (later Conflict) Studies Research Centre (RMA Sandhurst and UK Defence Academy) and Director of Studies of the Royal United Services Institute (1983-85). He is the author of Soviet Power: The Continuing Challenge (1987), Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion (2013) and an extensive range of shorter publications about Russia, Ukraine and European security. For twenty years, he played an active role in UK and NATO defence and security cooperation in Ukraine and has made well over 100 visits to the country. In 2008, he was offered membership of the Kremlin backed Valdai Club (until 2017) and has spoken on six occasions at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In February 2024, he was ‘personally sanctioned’ (blacklisted) by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs along with 17 other British officials and experts.

• Dr. Sarah Fainberg-  Senior Researcher and Head of the Great Powers Research Program at Tel Aviv University’s Elrom Center for Air and Space Studies, specializing in Russian and Chinese policy in the MENA region. She also lectures in the MA Program for Security and Diplomacy Studies at Tel Aviv University. Beyond academia, Dr. Fainberg has played key roles in strategic planning across various institutions. She has served as a Senior Policy Advisor at Israel’s Ministry of Defense, provided ad hoc strategic planning for different organizations across Israel, the United States and Europe, and contributed to key projects between Israel and European countries in her capacity as a board member of ELNET. Dr. Sarah Fainberg is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from Sciences Po, Paris.

• Edward Hunter Christie- Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). He previously served as a NATO official (2014-2020).
  He holds a joint PhD in Economics and in the Social and Military Sciences from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and from the Royal Military Academy of Belgium.

 

• Dr. Joris Van Bladel- Senior Associate Fellow in the ‘Europe in the World’ programme at the Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations. He studied Social and Military Sciences at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels and Slavic Languages and Eastern European Cultures at Ghent University and holds a PhD in Arts from the University of Groningen. His doctoral research, The All-volunteer Force in the Russian Mirror: Transformation without Change (2004), explored the persistence of military traditions in post-Soviet Russia.
  Throughout and after his military career (1985–2006), he taught and lectured at institutions including the Royal Military Academy, Ghent University, the University of Amsterdam, Uppsala University, and the Technical University of Berlin. He has held research positions at the Center for Russian and East European Studies (University of Toronto) and at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin.
  His work focuses on Russian (military) culture, strategic thinking, the role of the armed forces in society, and long-term threat assessment, with a particular emphasis on sociological developments. He regularly comments in the media on these issues.
  In 2025, he published Land van het Grote Sterven: Hoe Rusland de Westerse logica tart (Prometheus), a widely discussed book that explores the enduring patterns of Russian military thinking and their impact on Western perceptions.

• MEP Rihards Kols- member of the European Parliament from the National Alliance (European Conservatives and Reformists Group), serves on the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs (AFET), International Trade (INTA) and Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committees. Member of the Board in the National Alliance party. Previously Kols served as a Member of the 12th, 13th and 14th Saeima (Parliament) of Latvia, chaired the Saeima Foreign Affairs Committee for two terms, was the head of the Saeima delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Saeima’s contact point in the Parliamentary Network of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (EASO). He is a Member of the Atlantic Council’s “Millennium Fellowship” program, serves in the National Guard of Latvia. Kols holds a Master’s degree in diplomacy and a Professional Bachelor’s degree in law.

Share