Completed studies in law, political science, and foreign languages. Lecturer at Vienna-based teaching centers affiliated with U.S. universities. Held a chair of political science at the University of Vienna. Visiting professorships and guest lectures in various countries (Russia, Hungary, Poland, Iraq, Egypt, Cambodia). Worked in various field missions and presences of the international organization OSCE (Tbilisi, Chechnya, Belgrade). Co-founder of ICEUR-Vienna and currently its Vice President. Publications on Soviet, Russian, and East European politics in various languages.

Author of publications on Soviet, Russian, and Eastern European politics.
Able to communicate in 12 languages.

Dr. John Lough is a geopolitical expert with a background in Russia and Eastern Europe whose 35-year career has spanned the worlds of business, diplomacy, and research. He is an Associate Fellow of the Russia & Eurasia Programme at Chatham House (since 2009) and is a regular commentator on Russian and Ukrainian affairs. He spent three years with Highgate (2021-2024), a leading London-based strategy consulting firm, and was a partner in the company before moving to the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, a recently established think tank focused on the future of Russia.

He ran his own consultancy business for five years advising clients on political and investment risk in Russia, Ukraine, and other countries of the former Soviet Union. From 2008 to 2016, he ran the Russia/CIS practice of BGR Gabara, a public affairs consultancy. From 2003 to 2008, he was an international affairs adviser at TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest oil company at the time. He spent six years with NATO managing information programmes aimed at Central and Eastern Europe, including a posting to Moscow where he set up NATO’s Information Office in Russia.

He was the first Alliance official to be permanently based in Russia (1995-1998). During this time, he developed media and public affairs programmes designed to contribute to better understanding of NATO and its policies in Russian society and was NATO’s spokesman in Russia. Before joining NATO, he was a senior lecturer at the Soviet Studies (later Conflict Studies) Research Centre in the UK, writing on a wide range of defence, security, and foreign policy issues related to the former Soviet Union.

He studied German and Russian literature at Cambridge University. He is the author of Germany’s Russia Problem (Manchester University Press 2021).

Economist, sociologist, publicist
Vladislav Inozemtsev is a Russian economist and sociologist, Doctor of Economics, and professor. He is the founder and director of the Center for Post-Industrial Studies. He has served as a visiting professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and at the Higher School of Economics.

He is the author of more than 15 books and hundreds of articles on issues of economic development, political transformation, and globalization. His work has been published in The Moscow Times, Vedomosti, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, as well as in leading international outlets.

In recent years, he has been actively commenting on international and Russian politics, participating in expert discussions in Europe and the United States.

• Director of the Center for Post-Industrial Studies
• Special Advisor to the MEMRI project on Russian media studies (Washington, D.C.)
• In May 2024, together with Dmitry Nekrasov and Dmitry Gudkov, he co-founded CASE — the “European Center for Analysis and Strategies.”

Dr. Anatol Lieven is Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC. He was a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar from 2014 to 2021. He holds a BA and PhD from Cambridge University in England. His latest book, Climate Change and the Nation State, was published in paperback in 2021 by Penguin (UK) Oxford University Press.

From 1986 to 1998, Anatol Lieven worked as a British journalist in South Asia, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, and is author of several books on these regions, including Pakistan: A Hard Country and Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry. His book The Baltic Revolutions: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence won the Orwell Prize for political writing and the Oxford University Press Governor’s Award. America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (updated second edition 2012) delineated the main dividing lines in US politics and political culture concerning national identity and foreign policy. He writes frequently for the media, and his articles have appeared in The Financial Times, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Time, and Newsweek. In March 2023, Anatol Lieven was seriously injured in an accident while researching in Ukraine.

Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Salzburg. Receiving his PhD from Michigan State University, he subsequently taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1994 to 2009. Heinisch's research focuses on comparative politics, the radical right, populism as well as US-European relations. He is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed research articles and more than 50 other academic publications, including 14 books.

His research has been published in the Journal of European Political Research, Political Studies, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, and many others. His books include Understanding Populist Party Organization (Palgrave 2016); The People and the Nation (Routledge 2019), and Politicizing Islam in Austria (Rutgers' University Press 2024). His research has been funded by grants by the European Union as well as the, the Austrian and Swiss Research Funds. He is the recipient of the National Science Award of the Austrian Parliament (2017), comments frequently on US and Austrian politics in international media, and lectures widely on US politics, most recently at the European Defense Academy in Brussels. He has been a regular visiting lecturer at Renmin University of China in Beijing since 2014.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a British-Ukrainian political scientist specializing in Ukraine, Russia, and the post-Soviet space. Born in 1958 in Halifax, UK, he holds degrees from the University of Sussex (Economics), the University of London (Soviet Studies), and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Birmingham, with postdoctoral work at Yale. He served as Director of NATO’s Information and Documentation Centre in Kyiv (1998–1999), was a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and a senior research fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
Author of over 20 books, including Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (2022)

Senior Advisor, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Editor-in-chief of Kennan Focus Ukraine, of the Ideology and Politics Journal, and of the Koinè Almanac
Professor, The Free University

His recent books:

• From Servant to Leader. Chronicles of Ukraine under the Zelensky Presidency, 2019–2024 (Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, forthcoming in 2025)
• The Post-Soviet Human. Philosophical Reflections on Post-Soviet History
• in Ukrainian [Kyiv: Laurus — Milano: Kοινὴ, 2024];
• in Russian [Riga: School for Civic Education, 2024];
• in English [Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2024]
• Philosophy Unchained. Developments in Post-Soviet Philosophical Thought (ed. by M. Minakov) (Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2023)
• Inventing Majorities. Ideological Creativity in Post-Soviet Societies (ed. by M. Minakov) (Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2022)

Dr. Robert Müller, born in Graz, Austria, is the current Ambassador of Austria to Ukraine. He studied at the University of Graz, earning a Mag. phil. in History, Geography, and Philosophy (1987–1993) and a Dr. phil. in History (1993–1995), and later graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna with a diploma in International Relations (1995–1997). Over the course of his diplomatic career, he has held a variety of senior positions within the Austrian Foreign Ministry as well as postings abroad, including in New York and at NATO.

In April 2025, Dr. Müller was appointed Ambassador to Ukraine, arriving in Kyiv in May and presenting his credentials to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in June. Since taking up his post, he has emphasized Austria’s unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, while actively engaging in humanitarian and reconstruction initiatives. His work has focused on areas such as assistance to children, demining efforts, energy efficiency projects, and the development of bilateral cooperation across multiple sectors.

Senior Research Fellow, Head of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Transformational Processes, New Eurasian Strategies Center (NEST).

Political expert with four decades of experience spanning academia, politics, and business, specializing in Russian domestic politics, elites, and decision-making. Former visiting researcher at SWP (Berlin) and consulting fellow at Chatham House (London).

Previously served as senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme (2019-2022), professor and head of a laboratory at the Higher School of Economics (2013–2021), and scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, where he co-directed the Society and Regions project. Adviser to the Russian parliament, government, and presidential administration (1990-1995).

Author and editor of numerous works on Russia’s political regime, federalism, elections, and regional development, including The Dynamics of Russian Politics (2004, 2005), Russia 2020, Russia 2025, and The State of Russia (2015).

CertTransl (Leipzig), AM (Stanford), MPhil (Oxford), DipPolSci, DrPhil (FU Berlin), PhD (Cambridge). Fellow or lectureships at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, Harvard University, St. Antony’s College Oxford, Urals State University in Yekaterinburg, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kyiv, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and Institute of International Relations in Prague. Since 2020, Analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

General editor of the book series Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Ukrainian Voices. Member of the boards of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies, Boris Nemtsov Centre for the Academic Study of Russia at Charles University of Prague, book series Explorations of the Far Right, Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, World Affairs journal, Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul’tury, and The Ideology and Politics Journal.

Doris Vogl is a sinologist, with PhD in Political Science from the University of Vienna.
Her research is focused on China and European security policy. She was a lecturer at Salzburg University, and has been teaching at her alma mater, the University of Vienna, for over 7 years.

Ms. Vogl was seconded (employed via nomination by a member state) or contracted (employed directly by the mission) for European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy missions: EUMM Georgia (2008-2010), EUPOL Afghanistan (2011-2013), EUCAP Sahel Mali (2014-2015). She was also seconded for OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Luhansk Region (2015-2017) and OSCE Office in Yerevan, Armenia (2010 – 2011). Before that, she had also studied and worked in PR in China, Taiwan, Cambodia, and Southern Caucasus.