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Roundtable XI: Speaker Bios

Alexander Berdnikov

Alexander Berdnikov is a Moscow based specialist in the constitutional law of the CIS countries and their bilateral relations; concurrently, he is the Deputy Director General of the RU Strategic Culture Foundation. Dr. Berdnikov is the author of numerous works on nationalities relations in the Russian Federation and CIS countries as well as of a number of articles regarding Ukrainian state problems.

Ilan Berman

Ilan Berman is Vice President for Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. An expert on international terrorism and regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Russian Federation, Mr. Berman”s writings have appeared in such publications as the WSJ Europe, Middle East Quarterly, the Washington Times, the Jerusalem Post and the Journal of International Security Affairs and Strategic Review.

Yaroslav Bilinsky

Yaroslav Bilinsky is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Delaware. Dr. Bilinsky, in his forty five years as an academic, has published several books and countless articles on the subject of Ukraine.

Steven Blank

Steven Blank is currently Professor of National Security Studies at US Army War College; prior to his present position, Dr. Blank taught for twenty years at the Institute for Security and Development Policy. His expertise in matters concerning the post-Soviet space is widely recognized and highly regarded.

Jan Bugajski

Jan Bugajski is Director of the Eastern European Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The project is engaged in an ongoing analysis of broader political trends encompassing twenty states and aspiring states in Eastern Europe, including the political and security impact of NATO and European Union enlargement.

Samuel Charap

Samuel Charap is Associate Director for Russia and Eurasia and a member of the National Security and International Policy team at American Progress. Dr. Charap focuses on the domestic politics, political economy, and foreign policies of the former Soviet states and U.S. policy in the region.

Ariel Cohen

Ariel Cohen is a well-known international expert on Ukrainian, Russian, Eurasian, European and Middle Eastern foreign, security and economic affairs; U.S. and global energy security; terrorism; organized crime and corruption, and other political risk factors. Dr. Cohen is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security at the Davis International Studies Institute at the Heritage Foundation, working closely with Congressmen and Congressional staff members and cabinet-level foreign decision makers. He has over 20 years experience and responsibility in research project management, government relations/political public relations, journalistic writing, and broadcasting.

William H. Courtney

William H. Courtney is Senior Vice President of CSC/DynMeridian Corp. From 1998 to 2000, he served as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In 1997-98, Ambassador Courtney was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of the NSC staff for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. Previously, he served as Ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Orest Deychakiwsky

Orest Deychakiwsky is senior staff advisor at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) whose country responsibilities currently include Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria. He has served as a member of U.S. delegations to numerous OSCE/CSCE meetings and as an international election observer in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Bosnia. Mr. Deychakiwsky has authored or co-authored a sizable number of speeches, statements, resolutions, and articles on issues pertaining to Ukraine or U.S.-Ukrainian relations.

Nadia Diuk

Nadia Diuk currently serves as Program Director for Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States at the National Endowment for Democracy, a private nonprofit organization funded by the US Congress to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. Dr. Diuk has supervised NED programs in this complex region since 1987.

Volodymyr Dubovyk

Volodymyr Dubovyk is Associate Professor and Assistant Chairperson at the Department of International Relations, Institute of Social Sciences, Odessa National University as well as Senior Research Fellow and Director at the Center for International Studies, ONU. He spent 2006 in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center”s Kennan Institute.

Bohdan Futey

Bohdan Futey has served as Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims since 1987. Judge Futey is actively involved with Democratization and Rule of Law programs organized by the Judicial Conference of the United States, the Department of State and the American Bar Association in Ukraine and Russia.

Katie Fox

Katie Fox is Deputy Regional Director for Eurasia at NDI in Washington. Before joining the Institute, Ms. Fox served as the legislative director at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, developing and implementing legislative strategies. Earlier, she served as a legal counsel with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, as a legislative assistant in the office of Representative Ed Feighan, and as an assistant to the chief of staff for Senator Barbara Mikulski.

James Greene

James Greene is President of Effective Engagement Strategies LLC and concurrently a Fellow at the Atlantic Council. For several years, Mr. Greene was the Head of the NATO Liaison Office (NLO) in Ukraine; prior to that appointment, he worked for a year as external co-director for the NATO Membership Action Plan Project.

Oleksandr Horyn

Oleksandr Horyn is the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Prior to his current position, Dr. Horyn served as the Ambassador at large at the Foreign Ministry, focusing on issues of combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination. His distinguished diplomatic career includes positions as Ambassador of Ukraine to the Republic of Singapore, Minister-Counselor at the Embassy of Ukraine to Canada and Deputy Head of the Directorate General on Foreign Policy at the Administration of the President.

Taras Kuzio

Taras Kuzio is President of Kuzio Associates, an independent consultancy and government communications company based in Washington DC and Kyiv; concurrently, he is a Visiting Fellow with the Center for Transatlantic Relations, at the School of International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Kuzio has prepared papers, given talks, and participated in the preparation of reports to numerous U.S. government agencies, including the United States Department of State, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the U.S. Institute for Peace.

Bruce Jackson

Bruce Jackson is the founder and president of the Project on Transitional Democracies for the Project for the New American Century, a group whose goal is “to accelerate the integration of Europe’s new democracies into NATO and the European Union.”

F. Stephen Larrabee

F. Stephen Larrabee is a Senior Staff member at RAND in Washington, D.C. and holds the RAND Corporate Chair in European Security. From 1978-1981, Dr. Larrabee served on the U.S. National Security Council staff in the White House as a specialist on Soviet-East European affairs and East-West political-military relations.

Nico Lange

Nico Lange is the Director of the Ukraine Programme and Kyiv Office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Mr. Lange has proven to be a critical force behind many of the recent forums dedicated to studying Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic Future.

Lewis Madanick

Lewis Madanick is currently Program Manager for the US Library of Congress” Open World Leadership Development Center, charged with bringing a new generation of leaders from Lithuania, Ukraine and Uzbekistan to the United States for an internship in building responsible civil society and democratic government”.

William Miller

William Miller is presently a Senior Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center. Earlier, he served as the second United States Ambassador to Ukraine. During his tenure, Ambassador Miller was eyewitness to some of the most fundamental transformations of the Ukrainian State, including the ratification of Ukraine’s Constitution.

Olexander Motsyk

Olexander Motsyk is the current Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United States of America, a position he has held since June 2010. A career diplomat, Ambassador Motsyk served as the Ukrainian envoy to Poland from May 2005 until June 2010 as well as Ukraine”s chief emissary to the Republic of Turkey from November 1997 to November 2001.

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko serves as the Head of the Political Council of the Electoral Bloc Our Ukraine” and concurrently as the Head of the well regarded NGO: Onovlennya Krainy”. Previous to his current engagements, Mr. Nalyvaichenko served as the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU); his tenure lasted from Dec 2006 to March 2010.

Hryhoriy Nemyria

Hryhoriy Nemyria is the chief foreign policy advisor to the BYuT electoral bloc’s leader, Julia Tymoshenko. Earlier, Dr. Nemyria served as the Director of the Center for European and International Studies (CEIS), Institute of International Relations of the Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University and Chair, Department for European Integration, Ukrainian Academy of Public Administration; under the Tymoshenko government, he held the post of Vice Prime Minister for Euro-Integration.

Steven Nix

Steven Nix is Director of the Eurasian Division at the International Republican Institute. From 1995 to 1997, Mr. Nix served as Outside Legal Counsel for the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Legal and Judicial Reform. Upon his return to the U.S., he accepted a position as Senior Democracy Specialist at USAID, where he assisted in the design and implementation of democracy programs in Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States.

Friedbert Pflüger

Friedbert Pflüger is a German politician associated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Since 2009, he is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at King’s College London. He was a Member of the German Parliament 1990-2006, serving as chairman of the Bundestag’s EU-committee (1998-2002) and as foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group (2002-2005).

Herman Pirchner

Herman Pirchner is President of the American Foreign Policy Council. In recent years, in addition to the steady flow of books and articles, the Council has worked with over 100 members of Congress and numerous Executive Branch officials on foreign travel, exchanges and foreign policy briefings. Mr. Pirchner previously served as Director of Legislation for Senator Roger Jepsen (R-Iowa).

Matthew Rojansky

Matthew Rojansky is the Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously, he worked as Executive Director of the Partnership for a Secure America.

Daniel Russell

Daniel Russell is presently Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. Immediately prior to his current posting, DAS Russell held a senior diplomatic position at the US Embassy in Moscow.

Oleh Rybachuk

Oleh Rybachuk, before taking the present position of Head of the NGO “Suspilnist”, served in several senior government posts including: Vice Premier for European Integration and Head of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine.

Yuri Scherbak

Yuri Scherbak is currently Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and concurrently a Co-Chair of the Committee in Defense of Ukraine. Dr. Scherbak was appointed Ukraine’s first Ambassador to Israel in 1992 and remained in that post until November, 1994, when he was appointed Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States. In November 1998, he finished his duty as Ambassador to the United States and was appointed Adviser to the President of Ukraine on International Issues. From March 2000 till May 2003, the esteemed Ukrainian diplomat acted as Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada.

Serhiy Shevchuk

Serhiy Shevchuk is currently a Member of Verkhovna Rada (BYuT Deputies Fratzya), and serves on the Verkhovna Rada Committee on German-Ukrainian Relations.

Keith Smith

Keith Smith is Senior Advisor in the Europe Division at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs (CSIS); his most recent publication: Russian Energy Politics in the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine” has prompted very serious attention. In 2000, Ambassador Smith retired from the State Department”s Foreign Service after serving from 1997 to 2000 as the American Ambassador in Lithuania. In Europe, he was also posted to Hungary (twice), Norway and Estonia.

Gennady Shorokhov

Gennady Shorokhov serves as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Russian Duma Deputy Sablin; concurrently, he is the vice chair of the RU Veterans Association.

Marik String

Marik String is a Professional Staff Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and staff advisor to FRC Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar. Earlier, Mr. String did work as a researcher of transatlantic relations at Aspen Institute, Berlin.

Oleksandr Sushko

Oleksandr Sushko is the Director of the Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine; he also serves in an advisory capacity at the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine. Dr. Sushko’s CPCFPU’s Internet Newsletter, provides timely analysis of key political economic, security and diplomatic issues facing the Ukrainian political and social leadership.

Borys Tarasyuk

Borys Tarasyuk is currently the Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Euro-Integration; in the last decade, he has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in governments headed by Prime Ministers Valeriy Pustovoitenko, Viktor Yushchenko, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Yuri Yekhanurov and Viktor Yanukovych. Ambassador Tarasyuk concurrently serves as the Head of the NRU People”s Rukh of Ukraine and Director of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation.

Andreas Umland

Andreas Umland teaches within the Master in German and European Studies program at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and edits a scholarly book series on Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society”. Dr. Umland”s study ″Post-Soviet “Uncivil Society” and the Rise of Aleksandr Dugin: A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary Radical Right in Contemporary Russia,″ has received high critical praise for its incisiveness.

Volodymyr Viatrovych

Volodymyr Viatrovych is currently Mykola Lebed Archive Research Fellow at Harvard University”s Ukrainian Research Institute. Previous to his current work, Dr. Viatrovych serves as Director of Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Jorge Zukoski

Jorge Zukoski currently serves as President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine; in that role, he has proven to be an invaluable proponent of ever widening US-Ukrainian economic relations.