On Monday June 12th the Baltic Defence College had the honour to launch the publication of the book "Anatomy of a Hostage – Kaliningrad anniversary case" with a presentation by its author, Dr. Raimundas Lopata.

 

Dr. Raimundas Lopata is the Director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University - a renowned political science educational and research institution in Lithuania. Dr Lopata is one of the leading Lithuanian experts in geopolitics, Russian-Baltic and Russia-EU relations and developments in the post-Soviet space. As such, he is also heavily involved in the foreign policy initiatives and projects of Lithuania: for instance, a recent summit "Common Vision for Common Neighbourhood" (Vilnius Conference 2006) - a forum co-hosted by the Presidents of Lithuania and Poland (see http://www.vilniusconference2006.lt/ ). The presentation took place in an informal atmosphere, where the author after a brief introduction to the book proceeded to have a question and answer session which continued more as a discussion between the author and the audience. The friendly atmosphere inspired the audience to ask many questions, and the author tried to answer all even those that might not be related directly to the theme of the book, basing his answers as much on his general knowledge of the field as on his own and research of other scholars. "Anatomy of a Hostage" is the first book published by the Baltic Defence College under its research programme, in an effort to promote academic and policy debate on various regional security and cooperation issues. The book itself is to be found in an electronic version on our website in the "Research" section.