Experts & Staff

Leo Litra

Visiting Fellow

Areas of expertise

Eastern Europe, Ukraine, EU integration, conflicts in Eastern Europe

Languages

English, Romanian, Ukrainian, French, and Russian

Biography

Leo Litra is a visiting fellow with the Wider Europe programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a senior fellow at New Europe Center in Kyiv, Ukraine and a Marshall memorial fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Previously, Litra served as a research fellow at the Institute of World Policy in Ukraine. He is the author of numerous publications on the democratisation of the post‐Soviet space, European integration, and frozen conflicts. He also regularly contributes to Freedom House’s “Nations in Transit” report and the Bertelsmann Transformation Index. His main research interest is the accession process to the European Union.

Litra was a Carnegie research fellow at Yale University in 2009 and holds an MA in international relations and European studies from the European Institute of High International Studies in Nice, France.

You break, you pay: Why the West should start confiscating frozen Russian assets now

Ukraine’s Western allies are discussing the possibility of confiscating frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction. But if confiscated during the war, these funds could provide desperately needed – and stable – financial support for Kyiv’s war effort

The final frontier: Ending Moldova’s dependency on Russian gas

Over the past year, Moldova has rid itself of Russian gas supplies. But it still receives electricity from the Russian-sponsored breakaway region of Transnistria. Ending this final dependency would bolster Moldova’s security – and Europe’s

Publications

Articles

You break, you pay: Why the West should start confiscating frozen Russian assets now

Ukraine’s Western allies are discussing the possibility of confiscating frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction. But if confiscated during the war, these funds could provide desperately needed – and stable – financial support for Kyiv’s war effort

The final frontier: Ending Moldova’s dependency on Russian gas

Over the past year, Moldova has rid itself of Russian gas supplies. But it still receives electricity from the Russian-sponsored breakaway region of Transnistria. Ending this final dependency would bolster Moldova’s security – and Europe’s

Events

In the media