Olesya Vartanyan

Olesya Vartanyan

Former Giustra Fellow, now Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region at Crisis Group

Crisis Group Role

Olesya Vartanyan is Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region. Based in Tbilisi, she researches and produces reports on regional security issues in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, with a particular focus on breakaway regions in the South Caucasus – Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

Professional Background

Olesya Vartanyan has worked on conflicts in the South Caucasus for more than ten years. Before joining Crisis Group in 2016, Olesya worked as a journalist, with a particular focus on security and conflict-related issues in Georgia and its breakaway regions. With her field reporting during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Olesya contributed to the ground-breaking investigations of The New York Times about the origins of the conflict. Enjoying unique access to Abkhazia, for a number of years she covered crisis developments in this region for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In 2013, Olesya received the first EU Monitoring Mission’s special prize in Peace Journalism. She holds master degrees from the King’s College London’s War Department and from the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs’ Media School.

Languages

  • Russian  
  • English  
  • Georgian  
  • Armenian  

In The News

15 Dec 2022
With the current crisis in Ukraine, it is not easy for those in the West to support the Russian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh. Eurasianet

Olesya Vartanyan

Former Giustra Fellow, now Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region at Crisis Group

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