Buck Ryan, a journalism professor and director of the Citizen Kentucky Project of the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at the University of Kentucky, has followed journalism trends in Russia over the last decade. He has conducted Maestro Concept storytelling seminars for Russian journalists, including investigative reporters, and journalism school students and faculty across multiple time zones. In 2014 Ryan co-authored an article, “Civic arms race: To Russia, with love for young voters,” with a senior lecturer at Lomonosov Moscow State University’s journalism school on the rise in popularity of Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny, now in prison and recognized by Amnesty International as “a prisoner of conscience.”