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Ivan Safranchuk

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Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer (Fall 2019)

Dr. Ivan Safranchuk holds several teaching and research positions with Russian and foreign universities and think-tanks: senior fellow at the Institute of International Relations (research division of MGIMO University), non-resident fellow with CSIS (Washington, DC), publisher of the journal “Great Game: politics, business, security in Central Asia”, Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at the Yale University (the 2019 Fall semester).

Dr. Ivan Safranchuk graduated in 1998 from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). In 2003, he received the degree of candidate of sciences (Russian equivalent of Ph.D.) from Academy of Military Sciences for the thesis on post-cold war nuclear strategy.

Prior to his current positions, Dr. Safranchuk worked at the PIR Center for Policy Studies on arms control projects from 1997 to 2001. Between 2001and 2007 he headed Moscow Office of the Washington-based think-tank Center for Defense Information (later renamed into World Security Institute, where Dr. Safranchuk served as advisor for two more years). After 2007, Dr. Safranchuk publishes the magazine “Great Game: politics, business, security in Central Asia”, also providing consultations on Central Asia and neighboring regions. This independent research was interrupted from 2011 until 2014, when Dr. Safranchuk was appointed deputy director at the Institute of Contemporary International Studies (Diplomatic Academy, Russian MFA). In 2015-2017 he also served as an adviser to the President of the Diplomatic Academy of Kyrgyzstan under the Kyrgyz Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2016 Dr. Safranchuk was a visiting fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In spring 2017 he was a Henry Hart Rice Faculty Fellow  with the McMillan Center at Yale University, teaching a course of Central Asia.

Throughout the last eight years, Dr. Safranchuk has been involved in a number of projects on Central Asia and Afghanistan. This includes research projects for Russian, US and European organizations, and also for international organizations - UN (UNDP and ESCAP). For example, in 2010 he managed a project sponsored by Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to research regional perspectives on the Afghanistan. In 2011-2012, Dr. Safranchuk coordinated Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) project on urbanization in Uzbekistan. In 2011-2013, he coordinated a project entitled “Strengthening economic ties between Afghanistan and neighboring countries,” which was implemented by ESCAP. In 2014, Dr. Safranchuk was part of a UN advisory group that supervised the audit of the second round of the presidential elections in Afghanistan.

Dr. Safranchuk serves on the advisory council of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation (USA) and is a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, aka SVO (Russia). He publishes on U.S.-Russian relations and arms control, Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Department: 
Program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies of the MacMillan Center