Associate Experts




Natalya BELITSER, Professor, is currently Expert/Researcher at the Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy. Her area of expertise includes issues of interethnic relations, minorities and indigenous peoples’ rights, ethnopolitical conflict prevention, and human security. She is author of a number of publications on Crimea, post-Soviet “frozen conflicts” and related issues, contributor to collective monographs as, e.g., “Interethnic Relations, Minority Rights and Security Concerns: A Four-Countries Perspective (Hungary – Moldova – Romania – Ukraine)”, 2008; “Effective Institutional Responses for Combating Intolerance and Extremism in the Black Sea Region”, 2009. She is a member of a number of professional networks, including Civic Expert Council (Ukraine), Black Sea Peacebuilding Network, Eastern Europe/GPPAC, East European Security Research Initiative et al.


Marius LAURINAVIČIUS, Baltic-American Freedom Foundation (BAFF) Security Research Fellow at Hudson Institute. Previously he worked as Resident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA); Senior analyst at the Vilnius-based Eastern Europe Studies Centre (EESC). Before joining EESC, Marius Laurinavičius worked for the largest Lithuanian media group “Lietuvos Rytas” for almost 22 year. Laurinavicius holds a Master’s degree from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University. The foremost areas of his interest include Russian domestic and foreign policy, information wars, security in the Baltic region.


Zuzana NOVAKOVA, Visiting Researcher at Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. She is a junior researcher at International Institute of Social Studies in the Hague and works for the European Political Science Review journal published by Cambridge University Press. She was a Program Executive at the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels and worked with the Centre for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture in Bratislava. She remains a FutureLab Europe fellow in a programme convened by EPC. Her research focuses on policy responses to transitions in the “European neighbourhood”, EU external relations and Eastern partnership.


Oleksandr TYTARCHUK, Co-Founder and Member of the Board, East European Security Research Initiative Foundation; Associate Research Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute at the Diplomatic Acad­emy of Ukraine (FPRI), FPRI representative to the OSCE Network of Academic Institutions and Think Tanks. He holds a Master’s degrees in military management and international relations; PhD degree in pol-mil sciences (2008). Retired Colonel; Military Adviser of the Ukrainian Delegation to the OSCE (2002-2006); Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (2007-2008); Deputy Director, Department of International Relations, State Space Agency of Ukraine (2009-2011); Counsellor, OSCE Division, MFA of Ukraine (2011). Author of more than 30 scientific articles and co-author of 10 applied scientific researches on European security related issues.


Vera AXYONOVA, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher / Assistant Professor at Justus Liebig University Giessen and Visiting Lecturer at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany. She was previously Hurford Next Generation Fellow with the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Associate Researcher with Europe-Central Asia Monitoring program at FRIDE, a European think tank based in Madrid. Axyonova completed her PhD in Political Science at Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences and holds an MA in Intercultural Communication and European Studies and a Diploma in International Relations. Her research centers on security in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, external democratization and human rights promotion, and civil society development in the post-Soviet space.


Grazvydas JASUTIS, PhD, Visiting Professor at the University of Geneva; he teaches at Institute of International Relations and Political Science (Vilnius University) and General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania. Previously, he conducted researches at Columbia University, Harriman Institute in the city of New York, Creighton University and Tbilisi State University. Prior to his academic career, he held various positions in the EU monitoring missions to Georgia and Indonesia, the OSCE missions to Kosovo and FYROM, the Permanent Delegation of Lithuania to NATO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense of Lithuania. His academic interests are closely related to the security and conflicts in the post-soviet space in general and Caucasus in particular.


Roman YAKOVLEVSKY, Political Analyst and Observer. Author of a series of articles on foreign policy and security issues of Belarus and other post-Soviet countries published in independent Belarusian and foreign media. Regular Author and Contributor to Lithuanian web portal Delfi.lt.








Armen GRIGORYAN, Visiting Scholar at the Central European University Department of Political Science; policy adviser for some Armenian NGOs; analyses Caucasus issues for the Eurasia Daily Monitor and the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst; evaluates investment-related political risks for IHS Global Limited. He holds a Master’s degree in Political Science (Central European University, 2006), did an internship at the European Parliament (2007), received research grants from the National Scholarship Programme of the Slovak Republic (2009 and 2013), was an Open Society Institute Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative visiting fellow (2010-2011), International Visegrad Fund research fellow (2011), peer reviewer for Global Integrity (2011), Think Visegrad research fellow (2013). His research interests include post-communist transition, EU relations with the EaP countries, transatlantic relations, energy security and conflict transformation.


Maksym KHYLKO, Chairman of the Board, East European Security Research Initiative Foundation; Senior Research Fellow at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and Associate Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine. He holds PhD in Philosophy (2004) and Master’s degree in International Relations (2001). Between 2001-2010 he worked as a political and media analyst and consultant to a number of Ukrainian top-level politicians and officials. Author of over 50 scientific papers and over 400 analytical notes and policy briefs in the fields of geopolitics, international relations, mass media and social communications.


Samuel GODA, PhD, Research Fellow at the Research Centre of Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA) within the program “International Security”. In research he focuses on the role and perspectives of the OSCE in building peace and reconciliation. For this purpose he conducted research and study in the U.S., Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Moldova. His research interests include Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security issues; developments in CEE region; OSCE, NATO, EU CFSP and CSDP related issues; EU EaP; protracted conflicts and IR theories.




Alexandru POSTICA, Researcher at the Institute of History, State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova; Executive Director and Director of Human Rights Program at the NGO “Promo-LEX”. Holds Master’s degree in Law; author of a number of scientific papers and reports in the fields of human rights, public access to information, political repression, electoral legislation, fight against corruption. He took part in numerous conferences, seminars and trainings on human rights and public access to information in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine. He worked as an independent observer at the parliamentary (in 2005 and 2009) and local (in 2003 and 2007) elections in Moldova and as an international observer at the presidential elections in Ukraine (in 2004, 2005 and 2010).


Eiki BERG, Professor of International Relations at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Among his recent research activities, studies about territoriality and sovereignty issues in contested states have gained more prominence. He has published widely in leading peer-reviewed journals on bordering practices, identity politics and power-sharing in post-conflict settings. He is co-editor of Routing Borders Between Territories, Discourses and Practices (Ashgate, 2003) and Identity and Foreign Policy: Baltic-Russian Relations and European Integration (Ashgate, 2009). During the years 2003-2004 he served as MP in Estonian Parliament and observer to the European Parliament, EPP-ED faction, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. In 2012, he received National Science Award in the field of Social Sciences for the research in “Identities, Conflicting Self-Determination and De Facto States”.


Andrei POROTNIKOV, Head of the Belarus Security Blog network think-tank, established by him in January 2011 as the only non-governmental institutions in Belarus, which analyzes the issues of national security and political regime stability. Research interest includes the Belarusian-Russian relations in the field of defense and security; the security services and the military industrial complex of Belarus; analyzing the stability of Alexander Lukashenko’s political regime; the situation in the field of national defense; and law enforcement activities in Belarus.




Kornely KAKACHIA, Founder and Executive Director of the Georgian Institute of Politics in Tbilisi. A Professor at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Dr. Kakachia has held visiting appointments at John. F. Kennedy School of government, Harvard University and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in New York. He earned PhD in Political Science at Tbilisi State University. A member of International Studies Association and the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia).




Daniel SZELIGOWSKI, Research Fellow on Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM); economist and political scientist. His main research interests include EU foreign policy, European Neighbourhood Policy, Eastern Partnership, European Union-Ukraine/Belarus/Russia relations and Polish foreign policy. Club of Gdansk – Polish-Russian Young Leaders Meeting Point member.






Giorgi KANASHVILI, Executive Director at Tbilisi based think-tank Caucasian House. He holds Master degree in International Relations and continues his PHD studies at Ilia State University (Tbilisi). Giorgi is actively involved in Georgian-Abkhazian, Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Russian dialogue formats on the expert level. Spheres of academic interest: conflicts in Caucasus, North Caucasus, Russia’s foreign policy, Russian soft power, broader post-soviet space.





Marek LENČ, PhD, Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Department of IR and Diplomacy at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. During doctoral studies on German foreign policy he completed research stays at the universities and institutes in Jena and Berlin (Germany). Conducted post-doctoral research at Jean Monnet Chair in EU Law at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine) and was awarded 2015 research visiting fellowships at University of Vienna (Austria). He is co-author of the first Slovakian comprehensive analysis of post-unification German foreign policy; actively contributes to well-known international journals and leading Slovak newspapers Denník N. His main teaching and research interests include German foreign policy, Eastern partnership and Slovak political and economic transformation experience.


Rusif HUSEYNOV, Baku-based independent Researcher. He holds a Bachelor degree of international relations from Baku State University and was recently admitted to SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. He is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ThePoliticon online political journal. His main interest is peace and conflict studies, while his focus area covers mainly Eastern Europe, Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia.






Raimonds RUBLOVSKIS, Researcher at Riga Stradins University; Retired Colonel, former Commander of the Military Police of Latvian Armed Forces (1997), Commander of the Parliament and State President Security Service (1997-2003), National Military Representative of Latvia at NATO SHAPE, Mons, Belgium (2003-2007), and Chief of Strategic Planning Department (J-5) at the Joint Headquarters of Latvian Armed Forces (2007-2010). He holds a Master’s degree in History (University of Latvia, 1994) and Master’s degree in Military studies (U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, VA, 2001). He was a key person responsible for cooperation between Latvian Armed Forces and NATO ACT (2007-2010).


Pavel USOV, Director of the Center for Political Analysis and Prognosis; holds PhD in political science. Till 2005 worked as Lecturer at the Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University; took active part in political life of Belarus. From 2006 resides in Poland, where he prepared and defended the PhD thesis. Author of over 500 publications, including the scientific articles, political essays and interviews on contemporary politics and geopolitics of the Eastern European countries. His book “Establishing and functioning of the neo-authoritarian regime in Belarus” was published in 2014.







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