Ilya Timtchenko is a Master’s in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. As a Belfer Young Leader Student Fellow, Ilya is currently a research assistant for Ambassador Paula Dobriansky under the Future of Diplomacy Project and was a research assistant for the Intelligence Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Ilya is currently writing his senior recommendation paper on Ukraine’s medium- to long-term reconstruction for the United States Agency for International Development under the supervision of Robert Zoellick, former President at the World Bank Group and 14th United States Deputy Secretary of State. Ilya wrote a briefing paper titled “Congress’s Euro-Atlantic security spending and how it changed in 2022 with Russia’s war against Ukraine” for Professor Howell E. Jackson’s class Federal Budget Policy at the Harvard Law School. During the summer of 2022, Ilya interned for the Executive Office at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis think tank. He is the Founder and Chair of the Ukraine Caucus, a student organization at the Harvard Kennedy School, which hosts Ukrainian leaders and Ukraine experts at Harvard enabling students to focus on geopolitics of Ukraine and surrounding region as well as the country's relationship with the US. Ilya is a Board Member at First Aid of the Soul, a 501(c)3-registered nonprofit which provides free mental health services to Ukrainians affected by the war and free trainings to mental health professionals on the field in Ukraine. Ilya’s interests include transatlantic security, Eastern Europe, NATO, diplomacy, human rights, and countering Russian disinformation.

Before studying at Harvard, Ilya worked as a journalist in Ukraine since 2014. As an editor at Kyiv Post, a leading English-language newspaper in Ukraine, Ilya trained and managed many journalists who are now at the newly-established award-winning Kyiv Independent. As the Head of Ukraine at REDD Intelligence, an online information platform that provides intelligence and data on emerging market corporates, Ilya spearheaded the company’s presence in Ukraine. Ilya has been published in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, Atlantic Council, among others. Ilya received his bachelor’s degree from Gordon College with a double major in international affairs and economics.