Dr. Maryna Vorotnyuk is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London. Previously, she served as Research Fellow in RUSI’s International Security Studies team. She works on security developments in the Black Sea region, Russian, Ukrainian, and Turkish foreign policy, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Before joining RUSI, Dr. Vorotnyuk worked as a researcher for the Centre for European Neighbourhood Studies at Central European University in Budapest, and as a visiting lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. From 2006 until 2015, Dr. Maryna Vorotnyuk was affiliated with the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Ukraine and the Centre for International Studies at Mechnikov Odesa National University.

Dr. Maryna Vorotnyuk is the recipient of the Black Sea Young Reformers Fellowship, the E.U. Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship, and the German Marshall Fund Policy Designers Network Fellowship. She was also an alumna of the U.S. State Department Program on National Security Policy-Making, the High-Level Experts Program of the German Foreign Office, and the European Union Visitors Program.

She has spoken at public hearings of the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament.

Dr. Vorotnyuk has authored and co-authored several books and edited volumes, including Ukrainian‑Turkish Relations: State and Prospects for Development (2006), and contributed a chapter titled “Syrian Crisis: Test for the U.S.–Turkish ‘Model’ Partnership?” in Post‑Hegemonic Global Governance (2013). She also co-authored Turkey in a New Era: In Search for Identity (2011) and several editions of the annual analytical report series Ukrainian Prism: Foreign Policy covering the period from 2015 through 2018. She has also published numerous analytical articles on current security and geopolitical issues. Notable works include “The Donbas Conflict Is Not Closer to Resolution Despite the Paris Summit’s Initial Promise” (2020), and various articles for Ukrainian Prism examining political developments in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Slovakia, and Turkey. She has contributed to Ukraine Analytica with analyses on Black Sea security, NATO-Russia relations, and regional energy cooperation, and has co-authored multiple pieces for the Atlantic Council on Turkey’s strategic role in the Black Sea and Europe’s energy security.

Dr. Vorotnyuk has appeared as an expert commentator on leading international and Ukrainian media, including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Politico, and top Ukrainian outlets such as ICTV, Hromadske, Ukrainska Pravda, and NV.

She holds a PhD in International Relations from Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University.

Dr. Maryna Vorotnyuk is fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, and English, and has working knowledge of Slovak and Turkish.