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Live On Stage
Monday February 23 2026, 7pm GMT

Fiona Hill: The World in 2026

Fiona Hill is one of the most authoritative voices on the forces reshaping global politics today. Born in County Durham, from 2017 to 2019 she was a senior adviser on European and Russian Affairs at the White House and in October 2019 she was a key witness in President Trump’s first impeachment inquiry. In 2024 and 2025 she co-led the British Government’s Strategic Defence Review, which sets out how the UK should scale up its response to risks from an emboldened Russia and a less predictable United States. 

Hill cautions that we are not in a second Cold War, but in a more volatile era of asymmetric threats. She warns that Trump’s engagement with autocratic leaders such as Putin and Xi is strengthening authoritarian regimes and eroding long‑standing alliances, and highlights sabotage and disinformation – the kind of threats seen in recent incidents such as the Russian spy‑ship Yantar encroaching on UK waters and the rail explosion in Poland. 

Join us on February 23 as, in conversation with journalist Jon Sopel, Hill sets out the practical steps she believes the West must take to bolster its resilience and safeguard security and stability.

Event Name

Fiona Hill: The World in 2026

Speaker

  • Fiona Hill

    Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Chancellor of Durham University

Host

  • Jon Sopel

    Former BBC North America Editor and co-host of the News Agents and News Agents USA podcasts.

Speakers are subject to change.

Location
  • Union Chapel
  • Compton Terrace
  • London
  • N1 2UN
Time
  • Monday 23 February 2026
  • 7pm to 8:30pm GMT

Speakers

Speaker

Fiona Hill

Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Chancellor of Durham University

Senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and Chancellor of Durham University. Hill served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the US National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, as well as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the US National Intelligence Council from 2006 to 2009. Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, regional conflicts, and strategic issues, as well as the link between deindustrialisation and political populism. She is the author of the bestselling memoir There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century and co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. In December 2023, Hill was recognised by the United Kingdom as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for services to international relations, and in July 2024, she was appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be an external reviewer for a Strategic Defence Review for the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom.
Host

Jon Sopel

Former BBC North America Editor and co-host of the News Agents and News Agents USA podcasts.

Jon Sopel One of the UK’s best known journalists who has spent four decades reporting on global events and interviewing the people who shaped them. Described by President Trump as ‘another beauty’, his face has graced almost every news programme on the BBC and his familiar voice has carried across the airwaves of BBC Radio from Paris, Kuwait City, Washington DC and Blackpool. In February 2022 Sopel announced he was leaving the BBC to launch the News Agents podcast alongside Lewis Goodall and Emily Maitlis. In July 2023 he launched News Agents USA with Maitlis. In addition to the News Agents, he covered the 2024 US Election for Good Morning Britain and also hosted a return of the US Election Results programme America Decides with Shelagh Fogarty. Sopel has written a trilogy of books about the Trump presidency, as well as Strangeland: How Britain Stopped Making Sense, which was published on his return to the UK after eight years of political reporting in the US.

Speakers are subject to change.