CUSUR Logo
CUSUR Banner

Our Team

Walter Zaryckyj Headshot

Walter Zaryckyj

Executive Director

Walter Zaryckyj is Executive Director of the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations. The Center provides “informational platforms” or venues for senior-level representatives of the political, economic, security, diplomatic, and cultural/academic establishments of the United States and Ukraine to exchange views on a wide range of issues of mutual interest, and to showcase what has been referred to as a “burgeoning relationship of notable geopolitical import” between the two nations. Dr. Zaryckyj completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Columbia University; he taught political science at New York University for nearly three decades before moving on in recent years to do postdoctoral research work on Eastern Europe.

Christine Balco

Christine Balko

Kyiv – Director

Christine Balko is currently the Secretary of the Ukrainian American Freedom Foundation; concurrently, she is the Treasurer of the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine. In the coming months, she will be helping the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations set up its Kyiv Office and will thereafter serve as chief US liaison with the stated office.

Mykola Hryckowian

Mykola Hryckowian

Washington, DC – Director

Mykola Hryckowian is currently Director of the Washington DC office of the Center for US Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR); the Center has organized over 100 forums dealing with US-UA bilateral ties in the areas of national and energy security as well as economic and civil society development. From 2014 to 2015, Mr. Hryckowian was the Chairman of the Ad-Hoc Committee for Ukraine, a coalition of US NGO and Ukrainian-American communities that successfully advocated for the passage of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act 2014 and for the creation of the Senate Ukraine Caucus in 2015.