The DINAM Ukraine Discussion Series

Mariia Zolkina is the DINAM Research Fellow (2022-2024) in the Department of International Relations at LSE. She is a Ukrainian researcher and political analyst working in the fields of regional security, reintegration policies in occupied territories and wartime diplomacy. Since 2014 she has been producing expertise on the political component of Russo-Ukrainian war, especially regarding the Donbas region, and has analysed the socio-political implications of the conflict both at the national and international levels. 

Dr Florian Foos is Associate Professor in Political Behaviour in the Department of Government at LSE. He studies political campaigns using randomised field experiments and aims to identify the causal effects of formal and informal interactions between citizens, politicians and campaign workers on electoral mobilisation, opinion change and political activism. 

Tomila Lankina is Professor of International Relations at LSE. She has worked on democracy and authoritarianism, mass protests and historical drivers of human capital and political regime change in Russia and other countries; she has also analysed the propaganda and disinformation campaigns in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine. 

Mariia Zolkina is the DINAM Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE (2022-24). She is a Ukrainian researcher and political analyst working in the fields of regional security, wartime diplomacy, conflict studies and reintegration policies in occupied territories. Since 2014 she has been producing expertise on the Russo-Ukrainian war, focusing mainly on the Donbas region, and has analysed the socio-political implications of the conflict both at the national and international levels.

Olga Tokariuk is a Chatham House OSUN Academy Fellow, Ukraine Forum. Her main professional interests are international affairs and research on disinformation, especially in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She is a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and CEPA non-resident fellow. Olga’s background is in journalism and she has vast experience in Ukrainian and international media. She is a former head of foreign news desk at the independent Ukrainian Hromadske TV. 

Dr Maryna Vorotnyuk is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London. Previously, she held the position as Research Fellow in the International Security Studies team at RUSI. She works on security developments in the Black Sea region, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish foreign policies, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Dr Luke Cooper is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow with the Conflict and Civicness Research Group and Director of PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme. Dr Cooper is a historical sociologist and political scientist, whose work studies processes of change and transformation within and between societies. He has written extensively on nationalism, authoritarianism and the theory of uneven and combined development, engaging both contemporary and historical case studies. His most recent book, Authoritarian Contagion; the Global Threat to Democracy, was published by Bristol University Press in 2021.

Olexiy Haran (@o_haran), Professor of Comparative Politics at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (UKMA), Research Director at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (a leading Ukrainian analytical and sociological think tank)

Professor Haran was a member of the Public Council under Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for over 15 years and has numerous journal publications including the title ‘Constructing a Political Nation: Changes in the Attitudes of Ukrainians during the War in the Donbas (2017). His latest book From Brezhnev to Zelensky: Dilemmas of Ukrainian Political Scientist was published in 2021.

Volodymyr Dubovyk (@VolodymDubovyk), Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Director, Center for International Studies, Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University (Ukraine) 

Volodymyr Dubovyk is a Visiting Professor at Tufts University and is a recipient of the emergency grant from the Kennan Institute (2022) and non-resident fellowships from the George Washington and Toronto University. His areas of expertise extend beyond security studies and include transatlantic relations and Black Sea security. Professor Dubovyk has conducted extensive research at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as well as across several US institutions. He is the co-author of Ukraine and European Security (Macmillan, 1999) and has published numerous articles on US-Ukraine relations, regional and international security, and Ukraine’s foreign policy.  

Dr Kateryna Zarembo

Dr Kateryna Zarembo (@KaterynaZarembo) is a Ukrainian policy analyst and university lecturer, focusing on international relations and civil society studies. She is an associate fellow at the New Europe Center (Ukraine) and a senior lecturer at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (Ukraine).

Oksana Osadcha

Oksana Osadcha is an Associate of the International Defence Hub of the European Values Centre for Security policy (Czech Republic) and Program Director of the PROTECT (Promoting Reform Objectives through Technical Expertise and Capacity Transfer) project. She is also a visiting lecturer of Kyiv Mohyla Business School “Strategic leaders in Security and Defence Sector” and “Strategic Architects” MPA programmes.

Dr Omar Ashour (@DrOmarAshour), Professor of Security and Military Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies  

Professor Ashour is the Founding Chair of the Critical Security Studies Graduate Program (MCSS) and the director of the Strategic Studies Unit in the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies. His expertise includes military and combat effectiveness, small state defence, asymmetric warfare, insurgency and counterinsurgency.

He has previously taught at University of Exeter (UK) and at McGill University (Canada), and served as a senior consultant for the United Nations on security sector reform, counter-terrorism, and de- radicalisation issues. He co-authored the United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for West Asia's (UN-ESCWA) during the transitional periods of the "Arab Spring" and was editor of Bullets to Ballots: Collective De-Radicalisation of Armed Movements (Edinburgh University Press, 2021). His most recent book is How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2021).

Mykhaylo Samus, Director at New Geopolitics  Research Network 

Mykhailo Samus is an experienced researcher in the field of International Relations, with a focus on national resilience and new generation warfare. He served 12 years in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and gained his Master’s Degree in International Journalism from the Institute of Journalism, Kyiv Shevchenko National University (2007). Having started his career as a journalist at Defense Express, he became the Editor-in-Chief of the Export Control Newsletter magazine, and then the Deputy Director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies (CACDS). He was the founder (2009) of the EU CACDS office in Prague, and was responsible for the coordination of CACDS international activities, its regional sections, and projects with NATO and the EU. Mykhailo also was the member of the editorial border of the CACDS Analytical Bulletin Challenges and Risks.   

Dr Hanna Shelest, Security Studies Program Director, The Foreign Policy Council  

Hanna Shelest is Director of Security Programmes at the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” and Editor-in-chief at UA: Ukraine Analytica. Dr Shelest also is a non-resident senior fellow at CEPA (Washington, DC) and was a Senior Researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine, Odesa Branch. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome, and has experience in PR and lobbying for government and business. She has been an adviser of the Working Group preparing the 2035 Ukrainian Navy Strategy and in developing the Foreign Policy Strategy of Ukraine.  

Dr Shelest’s main research interests are conflict resolution and mediation, security and cooperation, especially in the Wider Black Sea Region and the Middle East, foreign policy of Ukraine, and NATO. 

Iryna Kosse

Iryna Kosse is Leading Research Fellow, Project Coordinator at the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (Ukraine).  

She has more than ten years of professional experience in policy analysis and advocacy and five years in organisational and project management in a leading Ukrainian economic think tank – Institute for Economic Research (IER). In 2022, Iryna Kosse was a Senior Fellow at Ukraine and Eastern Europe Programme of GLOBSEC (Slovakia) working on issues of economic recovery of Ukraine after the Russian war.

Hlib Vyshlinsky

Hlib Vyshlinsky, Executive Director, Centre for Economic Strategy. He has managed the Centre for Economic Strategy since it was founded in May 2015. Hlib has over 20 years’ experience in economic analysis and research. Since 2021 Hlib has been Head of the Board at Hromadske TV.

Chris Alden

Chris Alden, Professor in International Relations, LSE, and Director of LSE IDEAS Africa Programme and the LSE Global South Unit, and a former Programme Head, Global Powers and Africa, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). He is author of multiple books and articles including China and Latin America: Development, Agency and Geopolitics with A. Mendez (Bloomsbury, 2023).

Petro Burkovskyi

Petro Burkovskyi, Executive Director at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, and Head of the Centre for Advanced Russia Studies at NISS (2018-2020). Recent publications include Olexiy Haran, Petro Burkovskyi, Russo-Ukraine War 2022 and its impact on South Asia, IPRI Journal /lslamabad Policy Research Institute, 2022, Special Edition.

Tamila Tasheva

Tamila Tasheva is the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (since 2022), previously she was Deputy Permanent Representative since October 25, 2019. At the beginning of the temporary occupation of Crimea, she became a co-founder and long-term coordinator of the CrimeaSOS, one of the most famous and effective human rights organisations in Ukraine dealing with the topic of temporarily occupied Crimea (implementing partner UNHCR). She is a human rights activist and one of the Crimean Tatar young generation leaders.

Olga Aivazovska 

Olga Aivazovska is Head of the Board of the Civil Network OPORA NGO, an international expert in electoral matters and developing draft laws. Olga is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and Center for War Crimes Documentation (Warsaw).

Olga Aivazovska was a director of national, nonpartisan observation missions in Ukraine with over 25,000 activists involved from 2010 to 2021 and participated in electoral observation in more than ten countries of Europe. She was included in the top 100 most influential women of Ukraine in 2014-2021 (according to political editions of Focus magazine and the Novoe Vremia).