Taras Kuzio (born 7 April 1958) is a Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine). His area of study is Russian and Ukrainian political, economic and security affairs.

Education

Taras Kuzio is of Ukrainian descent. He received a BA in economics from the University of Sussex, an MA in Soviet studies from the University of London and holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Birmingham; he was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University.

Career

In 1986, Kuzio, based in London, began compiling and translating information on current events in Soviet Ukraine and provided this information to the media through the Ukraine Press Agency (UPA) in Great Britain. UPA was a branch of the officially British-registered company Society for Soviet Nationalities Studies, which published the bi-monthly Soviet Nationalities Survey (which had been launched in 1984 and continued until 1991) and monthly Soviet Ukrainian Affairs (1987-89). The Society for Soviet Nationalities Studies was financially supported by the Prolog Research and Publishing Corporation; unbeknownst to Kuzio, the funds originated from the CIA as part of their QRPLUMB Project, although the CIA had no editorial input. In 1992-93, Kuzio worked as a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. From 1993-95, he served as editor of the Ukrainian Business Review and directed the Ukrainian Business Agency. From 1995-98, he was a senior research fellow with the Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies at the University of Birmingham in England, where he completed his PhD on nation- and state-building in Ukraine. In the second half of the 1990s, he was a senior research fellow at the Council of Advisers to the Ukrainian Parliament. From 1998-99, he was director of the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Kyiv, Ukraine. He served as a long-term observer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe during the 1998 and 2002 parliamentary elections in Ukraine, and as a National Democratic Institute observer in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections. In 2004-06, he was a visiting professor in George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs' Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES). In 2010-11, he was an Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Visiting Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. In 2011-12, he was a visiting fellow at the Slavic Research Center at Hokkaido University in Japan. Subsequently, he was a senior research associate at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. His most recent book is Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (2022), which was published prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This follows two other books on Russia-Ukraine relations: Putin's War Against Ukraine: Revolution, Nationalism and Crime (2017) and Ukraine: Democratisation, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (2015), the latter of which surveys modern Ukrainian political history. He is the author and editor of sixteen books, including ''Open Ukraine. Changing Course towards a European Future From Kuchmagate to Orange Revolution (2013), Democratic Revolution in Ukraine (2011), Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism (2007) and Ukraine-Crimea-Russia: Triangle of Conflict'' (2007). He has also comparatively researched empire loyalism in Northern Ireland and Donbas. He is an associate research fellow at the UK Henry Jackson Society thinktank and has contributed to the Atlantic Council, Foreign Affairs, Kyiv Post, New Eastern Europe, and ''E-International Relations.

Selected publications

Volumes Authored Volumes Edited Volumes Co-Authored Think Tank Monographs