Welcome! I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program. My research focuses on civil-military relations and the use of force. It highlights how governmental security policies can undermine civilian control and how the pathologies of civil-military relations can foster or constrain the international use of force. My regional expertise includes Russia, Ukraine, and Israel.
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Being a native Ukrainian and Russian speaker, I collect data through elite interviews, fieldwork, archival research, and systematic review of local media sources, using quantitative and qualitative approaches for data analysis.
My book project, Know Thy Military: How Governmental Policies Weaken Civilian Control, challenges the assumption that the military is the main threat to civilian control. It explains how the elected politicians' decisions about the use of force can lead to the erosion of civilian control even in states with historically coup-averse militaries. The chapters build on evidence from Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and the United Kingdom.
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My work is published by Comparative Political Studies, Texas National Security Review, Perspectives on Terrorism, Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, POLITICO, The Washington Post, and the World Peace Foundation. My expertise on the Russian defense sector, Ukraine's security governance, and Russia's post-Cold War use of force informed projects by the U.K. Government's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Transparency International, and the World Peace Foundation, among others.