CREES was delighted to recently welcome back to campus acclaimed journalist and Russia expert Jill Dougherty, who gave a CREES Distinguished Lecture titled “Putin’s Eternal War.” An alumna of the University of Michigan, Jill Dougherty is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and a long-time contributor on Russia for CNN. Her talk on September 9, 2025 drew a standing-room-only audience of more than 130 attendees from across campus and the wider community.
Dougherty offered a vivid, personal narrative that wove together notable moments in her professional life with key developments in U.S.-Russian relations spanning from the 1960s to the present day. She began with her formative experiences studying Russian in high school with an émigré teacher, which led to her visiting the Soviet Union as an exchange student in 1969. Dougherty also shared insights from her long tenure as CNN’s Moscow Bureau Chief and reflected on meeting several leaders of the Soviet Union and later Russia, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin over the course of her career. The talk culminated with her reflections on being in Moscow in February 2022 when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began and the emotional and logistical challenges she faced in closing the CNN Moscow bureau office at that historic moment.
Following the lecture, Dougherty fielded wide-ranging questions from the audience. The evening concluded with a book signing, giving attendees the special opportunity to chat one-on-one with Dougherty.
CREES Director Elizabeth King reflected on the event's impact: “Through her lecture and generous Q&A discussion, Jill Doughtery shared her fascinating experiences studying, living, and working in Russia over the past few decades. It was such an engaging talk, that weaved together her own personal encounters with deep insight into the Kremlin’s current politics. We are so lucky to count Jill among our UM alumni and look forward to her continued reporting from the region.”
