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Since September 2022, I am a Research Fellow at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute (EFPI), an autonomous research centre at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS). As part of the EFPI team, I research Russia’s foreign and domestic politics. Currently I am focusing on Russia’s wartime diplomacy with the countries of the ‘Global South’.

Before joining EFPI/ICDS, I wrote forpolicy audiences on topics relating to Russia’s engagements with the ‘Global South’. Two research reports of mine have been published by leading think-tanks in the US and France, on Russia’s relations with Central America and Afghanistan, respectively. As part of the EFPI, I will continue to work on topics relevant to policy makers in Europe.

In addition to my policy-oriented research, I have been engaged in contributing to the scholarly literature on Russia and Eurasian politics. Since 2018, I have been writing a doctoral thesis at the Johan Skytte Institute for Political Studies, University of Tartu. Its defence is due in October 2022. In 2021 I was also the first Åland Peace Fellow at the Åland Islands Peace Institute.

My doctoral research is primarily concerned with diplomatic responses to security needs and conflict situations, bringing in insights from the Eurasian region. At Tartu, I am writing a thesis about sub-state diplomacy in the Russian North Caucasus and how it responds to the security needs of the region during the early 2010s. You can watch a video about my research here.

My most recent scholarly publication is an open-access article published at Nationalities Papers, a CUP peer-reviewed journal. The title is Chechnya’s Paradiplomacy 2000–2020: The Emergence and Evolution of External Relations of a Reincorporated Territory. The article offers an innovative look at Chechnya’s international relations by focusing on change and continuity in Grozny’s foreign engagements since the year 2000.

Finally, I have experience in media engagement, for commentary on current affairs based on my research and specialisations. I have been quoted on Le Monde and RFE/RL, and I have appeared on BBC World Service radio, France 24 (Spanish) and ANews. My commentary on Russia and Afghanistan has been published at RUSI, The Diplomat, The Oxus Society and Riddle. I have also provided commentary on Nicaragua-Russia relations (in Spanish). I have also written about Russia’s Red Sea engagements for Orient XXI. The text was reproduced in NKnews, Mogadishu and Hargeisa-based news websites, and US think tanks. You can read the article here.