December 10, 2004

Speaker Biographies

Ronald D. Asmus is a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From 1997 to 2000, he served as a deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the Clinton administration where he was responsible for European security, as well as Nordic/Baltic issues. He has also worked as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, RAND, and Radio Free Europe. Mr. Asmus is the recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award; the Republic of Poland’s Commander’s Cross, Order of Merit; the Kingdom of Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star; the Republic of Lithuania’s Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas (Second Class); and the Republic of Estonia’s Order of the Cross of St. Mary’s Land (Third Class). He has written widely on U.S.-European relations, as well as American foreign policy, and is the author of Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (2002).

Vyacheslav Bryukhovetskyy has been the president of the Kyiv-Molhyla Academy since 1994. He previously served as the academy’s rector. Mr. Bryukhovetskyy has researched and taught literary theory and history of literature for over twenty years. He was a researcher and one of the department heads at Institute of Literature at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He has authored over 300 publications on Ukrainian literature.

Zbigniew Brzezinski is the former national security adviser to President Carter. He is a trustee and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the cochair of the CSIS Advisory Board. He is also a professor of American foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies, of the Johns Hopkins University, and he cochairs the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya. During his distinguished career in politics and academia, Mr. Brzezinski served as the cochairman of the National Security Advisory Task Force (1988), director of the Trilateral Commission (from 1973 to 1976), chairman of the Humphrey Foreign Policy Task Force in the 1968 presidential campaign, and member of the Policy Planning Council of the Department of State (from 1966 to 1968). His many books include The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership (2004); The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe, and Russia (2001); The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997); and The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century (1989).

Larysa Denysenko is the director of Transparency International, Ukraine. She also directs the department of legal cooperation with international organizations at the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice and serves as the legal adviser to Serhiy Holovaty, a member of the Ukrainian parliament. In 1997, Ms. Denysenko cofounded the governmental anti-corruption program Clean Hands (1997). She is a member of the National League of Writers of Ukraine. Her publications include National System of Integrity (1998); Death Penalty in the CoE Countries (1998); Anticorruption Tool-kits (2002); Judicial Systems in the CIS Countries (2002); Problems with Corruption in the CIS Countries (2002); and Ukrainian Law: Issue 1, Ukrainian Legislation on Citizen’s Access to the Process of Participation in State Governance (2002).

Thomas A. Dine is president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. RFE/RL broadcasts every day to twenty-three countries of Central and Eastern Europe and across Eurasia, and to two countries of the Persian Gulf-Iran and Iraq. Before joining the radios in August 1997, Mr. Dine served as assistant administrator for Europe and the New Independent States at the U.S. Agency for International Development (1993–1997) and as executive director of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (1980–1993). Earlier he served as a staffer in the U.S. Senate and the American Embassy in New Delhi, India, and as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines.

Nadia M. Diuk is the director for Europe and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a board member of the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center. At the NED, Ms. Diuk supervises the democratization efforts in Russia, Ukraine, the Southern Caucasus, and the countries of Central Asia. Her research project, “The Next Generation of Young Leaders in Key Post-Soviet States,” will soon be published as a book. Before joining the NED, Ms. Diuk taught Soviet politics and Russian history, and she was a research associate at the Society for Central Asian Studies in England. She was also editor in chief of the London-based publication Soviet Nationality Survey. Her publications include two coauthored books: New Nations Rising: The Fall of the Soviets and the Challenge of Independence (1993) and The Hidden Nations: The People Challenge the Soviet Union (1990), as well as articles in the Washington Times, the Journal of Democracy, Orbis, The World and I, Azerbaijan International, and in the Russian Journal of Public Opinion.
 
Paula J. Dobriansky is under secretary of state for global affairs. In that capacity she is responsible for issues such as democracy, human rights, labor, counter-narcotics and law enforcement, refugee and humanitarian relief matters, and environmental/scientific issues. Ms. Dobriansky has lectured and published articles, book chapters, and op-ed pieces on foreign affairs-related topics, ranging from U.S. human rights policy to East European foreign and defense policies, public diplomacy, democracy promotion strategies, Russia, and Ukraine.

Donald N. Jensen has been director of communications at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty since 2002. Before that, Mr. Jensen served for six years as the Radios’ associate director of broadcasting and played a key role in launching new language services in Afghanistan, the North Caucasus, Macedonia and Kosovo. Mr. Jensen spent twelve years as a political officer in the Department of State, serving at American embassies in Sofia and Moscow and working in support of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear and chemical arms negotiations. Mr. Jensen was a commentator and consultant for the Public Broadcasting Service program, Return of the Czar, which received the 2001 Edward R. Murrow Award by the Overseas Press Club for distinguished reporting of international affairs.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a cofounder of the “Free Choice 2008” Committee, an umbrella organization of the Russian democratic opposition, and currently serves as its representative in the United States. He is also a political commentator of RTVI, an independent Russian satellite TV network, and Ekho Moskvy radio station. Mr. Kara-Murza has been writing as a political journalist for several major Russian newspapers, including Novye Izvestia and Kommersant, since the late 1990s. In 2000–2003 he was an adviser to Boris Nemtsov, leader of the democratic opposition in the Russian Parliament, and represented Mr. Nemtsov’s Union of Rightist Forces party in Great Britain. Vladimir Kara-Murza ran for the Russian Parliament as a democratic opposition candidate in the December 2003 elections, which were later described by OSCE observers as unfair and marred by widespread abuses on the part of Vladimir Putin’s party.

Adrian Karatnycky is counselor and senior scholar at Freedom House, principal analyst for Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, and coeditor of the annual Nations in Transit report on political change in the former Soviet bloc. From 1996 to 2003, Mr. Karatnycky served as the president of Freedom House and from 1993 to 1996 as its executive director. During that time he developed and introduced the organizations democracy programs into such transitional countries as Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Mr. Karatnycky serves as the codirector of the Council on Foreign Relations/Freedom Independent Task Force on Strengthening U.S. Leadership at the United Nations. 

General Nicholas Krawciw is the senior military adviser on Ukraine in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. He is also president of the Dupuy Institute, a  military history research center in Annandale, Virginia. From 1997 to 2001, General Krawciw was the senior military representative to Ukraine for the secretary of defense. He retired from the United States Army in 1990, after thirty one years in command and staff positions.

Ihor S. Kozii is the chief of branch at the Department for Euroatlantic Cooperation General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces. From 2000 to 2002, Colonel Kozii was involved with the Partnership for Peace program at NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, and since 1992 he held different staff positions within the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces. Colonel Kozii participated in the mission to eliminate the aftermath of the Chernobyl Atomic Power Station disaster.  His decorations include the medal “For Service in Armed Forces of the USSR” and the Long & Efficient Service Medal.

Roman Kupchinsky is the editor of the weekly Crime, Corruption & Terrorism Watch, which has been published since 2001 by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Before this assignment, Mr. Kupchinsky was the director of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Broadcast Service for ten years. He helped set up the Radios’ Kyiv office and arranged for its programs to be rebroadcast on an FM network throughout Ukraine.

Sander M. Levin was elected to the United States Congress in 1982. He currently represents the twelfth Congressional District in Michigan. He is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and the ranking democrat on the Trade Subcommittee. Mr. Levin currently serves as a cochair of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. He has introduced legislation to establish a memorial to honor the victims of the Ukrainian famine-genocide of 1932–1933, to grant a federal chart to the Ukrainian American veterans, and to extend permanent normal trade relations to Ukraine. Before being elected to Congress, Mr. Levin served as an assistant administrator in the U.S. Agency for International Development.

William G. Miller is currently a senior scholar at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center, and a counselor to the National Democratic Institute. In the mid-1990s, he served as the second United States ambassador to Ukraine. During his tenure, he was eyewitness to some of the most fundamental transformations of the Ukrainian State, including the ratification of Ukraine’s Constitution. Ambassador Miller just returned from Kyiv, witnessing first-hand the second-round election and its aftermath through December 5, 2004. He plans to return to Kyiv for the repeat second-round election in late December.

Inna Pidluska is president of the Europe XXI Foundation. Her work focuses on issues of civil society and politics in transition states, and the role of nongovernmental organizations and other civil society institutions in the process of European integration. Ms. Pidulska is member of the British Council’s Ukraine-UK Professional Network and a member of the World Bank’s NGO Contact Group in Ukraine. She also advises one of the member s of the Ukrainian Parliament.

Valeriy Pyatnytskyi is first deputy minister of economy and European integration of Ukraine. Before, he headed the Department of Multilateral Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade and served as the executive secretary of the Inter-ministerial Commission on Ukraine’s WTO accession. He is a professor of international trade and law at the National Trade and Economics University, and he lectures on the WTO, international trade and foreign economic activities of enterprises. Mr. Pyatnytskyi worked as a consultant at the Ukrainian-European Legal Policy Advice Centre.

Oleh Rybachuk is the chief of staff to the presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko and a member of Ukraine's parliament from the Nasha Ukrayina party. From 1999 to 2001, he served as chief of staff to Prime Minister Victor Yushchenko. Before that, he headed the international department at Ukraine's central bank. Mr. Rybachuk spent many years in India, where he worked for the oil trading company Zarubezhneftestroy, and he still considers India his second home.

Paula G. Schriefer has over eleven years of experience in designing and administering democratization programs. She currently oversees all of Freedom House's more than twenty-four major program initiatives and twelve overseas offices. Her programs include grant-giving, exchanges, technical assistance, and monitoring activities to support independent media, open and transparent governance, civil society development, justice sector reform, and the defense of human rights. She joined Freedom House in 1997 as part of the merger between Freedom House and the National Forum Foundation (NFF). As director of programs for the National Forum Foundation, Ms. Schriefer oversaw the Visiting Fellows Program, the American Volunteers for International Development program, and various democracy-building initiatives--all of which are now operated by Freedom House. Before joining NFF in 1994, she worked for the National Endowment for Democracy. Ms. Schriefer speaks Russian and some German and French.

Oleg Shamshur has been the deputy minister for foreign affairs of Ukraine since February 2004. Before that, he headed the European Union Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Throughout his career, Mr. Shamshur held the positions of minister-counsellor at the Embassy of Ukraine to the Benelux Countries, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Nationalities and Migration, member of the Presidential Commission on Citizenship, and first secretary and counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva. He has authored nearly sixty academic publications.

James Sherr is a fellow of the Conflict Studies Research Centre of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.  He is also lecturer in international relations at Lincoln College, Oxford, a consultant to NATO on Ukraine, and a former specialist adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee. He is the author of approximately 100 articles on Russia, Ukraine, and European security and is a regular contributor to the Ukrainian weekly, Zerkalo Nedeli. Within the past nine years, Mr. Sherr has made approximately seventy visits to Ukraine, as a participant in defense diplomacy and projects hosted by Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations. He also travels regularly to the Russian Federation, has published in Izvestiya and Nezavisimaya Gazeta, and has delivered papers at official NATO-Russia workshops in Moscow, as well as the defense reform seminar of the NATO-Russia Council.

Radek Sikorski is the executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative and resident fellow at AEI. He was Poland’s deputy minister for foreign affairs from 1998 to 2001. As the country’s deputy minister for defense in the first democratically elected government after the fall of Communism, he spearheaded Poland’s drive to join NATO. From 1986 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a war correspondent to Afghanistan and Angola, contributing to the Spectator (London) and National Review. He is the author of Dust of the Saints: A Journey to Herat in Time of War (1989) and The Polish House: An Intimate History of Poland (1997). His photograph from Afghanistan received the World Press Photo award in 1988. From 1981 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a political refugee in the United Kingdom.

Oleksandr Sushko is the director of the Center for Peace, Conversion, and Foreign Policy of Ukraine. His professional field includes security studies, European integration, and post-communist political systems. In 2002 Mr. Sushko was a visiting fellow of Freedom House and Monterey Center for Nonproliferation Studies. From 1997 to 1999, he was a political analyst, and from 1995 to 1998 he attended a post-graduate course at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine. His latest publications include The 2002 Parliamentary Elections as Indicator of Socio-Political Development of Ukraine (2002); Test without Error Limit? Ukrainian Election as an International Phenomenon (2002); and The Problem of Changing the Non-Integration Status of Ukraine in its Relations with the European Union (2001). 

Pawel Wolowski is the head of the department for Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and the Baltic States at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, Poland, and he specializes in Ukraine’s and Belarus’s relations with the European Union. He has coauthored the recent project “Eastern Policy of the Enlarged European Union: A Visegrad Perspective.” From 1996 to 2001, Mr. Wolowski headed the international department at the Catholic News Agency in Poland. He is also author of numerous articles on the situation of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe.