AN INTERVIEW WITH THE NEW YORK TIMES
There is definitely a deep meaning to these locations: They are to evoke and symbolize military triumphs and national sovereignty preserved in wars and paid for with enormous sacrifices,” said Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank.
“When the regime is fully confident of its legitimacy, the loyalty of the people and their armed forces… you don’t need this sort of display,” said Dr. Aron, “The more you need to display it, I think, the more you show that there is an issue of legitimacy.”
An Interview with Jonah Goldberg on The Remnant podcast
Trump’s foreign policy: An interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (May 22, 2025)
Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times (Feb 2025)
“As the Russia specialist Leon Aron, the author of the acclaimed “Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War,” remarked to me: Putin is not looking for “peace in Ukraine. He is looking for victory in Ukraine" — because without a victory, “he is very vulnerable at home. Capitalist democracies will do anything for peace, and Putin’s autocracy will do anything for victory. We need to switch that around.”
Voice of America Interview (Feb 2025)
Talking to VOA's Russian Service about the Trump, Zelensky, Europe's emerging policies toward Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine
Robin Ashenden in The Spectator (Feb 2025)
“Trump may feel himself at this moment a Master of the Universe calling out to other Masters of the Universe, a superhero starring in his very own episode of Avengers Assemble. But reality, when the projector glitches and the film begins to combust, may turn out far closer to the 2015 words of Russian expert Leon Aron:
‘Why wouldn’t Putin like him? Here’s a man who knows nothing about Russian history, Putin’s trajectory, Putin’s domestic politics, what happened since 2000 Russia when Putin took over and who presumably concentrates only on what he reads in the headlines. That would be a wonderful U.S. president for Russia to have.’”
CNN India News 18 Interview (March 2025)
Talking to CNN-India about the US-Ukraine "mineral deal" and President Trump's vastly different strategies in negotiating with Russia and Ukraine