Dr. Donald N. Jensen is a senior advisor for Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

He joined USIP after four years with the Center for European Policy Analysis, where he was a senior fellow and editor in chief. Dr. Jensen writes extensively on Russian domestic politics and Russian foreign and security policies. He also specializes in the domestic and foreign policies of other post-Soviet states, especially Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic republics and information warfare. He is also an adjunct professor at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He has lectured at various universities, including Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, Sarah Lawrence and George Washington University.

A former U.S. diplomat, Jensen provided staff support for the START, INF and SDI treaty negotiations and was a member of the first ten-man U.S. inspection team to inspect Soviet missile bases under the INF Treaty in 1988. While posted at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1991, he witnessed firsthand the end of the USSR.

From 1996-2008, Jensen was associate director of broadcasting and head of the research division at RFE/RL, where he helped lead that organization’s expansion into new broadcast regions after the end of the Cold War and its adaptation of multimedia technology to deal with the broadcasting challenges of the 21st Century, especially in Afghanistan and Iran. In 2016, he was a visiting scholar at the NATO Defense College in Rome, where he carried out a major research project on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Dr. Jensen received his bachelor’s from Columbia University and his master’s and doctorate from Harvard University.

Publications By Donald

Donald Jensen on Ukraine’s Surprise Incursion into Russia

Donald Jensen on Ukraine’s Surprise Incursion into Russia

Monday, August 12, 2024

The Ukrainian military seized a chunk of territory in the Kursk region of Russia as part of a surprise incursion that has left the Russian military in “a panic,” says USIP’s Donald Jensen, adding that Putin’s strategy until now did not “take into account that Ukraine could strike back, and they certainly have.”

Type: Podcast

After Trading Prisoners with Russia: Can the World Negotiate with Putin?

After Trading Prisoners with Russia: Can the World Negotiate with Putin?

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Last week’s prisoner exchange with Russia — the largest since the Cold War, with 24 captives exchanged among seven countries — sparked hopes internationally that, just maybe, similarly determined diplomacy might help thaw the frigid relations between Russia and the West and open space for a negotiated end to Russia’s aggressions abroad. Unfortunately, the prisoner deal’s underlying message is that Vladimir Putin’s regime uses negotiations only when it sees the outcome, as it did last week, as a victory at the expense of its perceived enemies. The deal illustrates the narrowness of opportunity for any negotiated solution to settle the sides’ differences.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

In Russia’s Hybrid War on Europe, Moldova’s Critical Next 15 Months

In Russia’s Hybrid War on Europe, Moldova’s Critical Next 15 Months

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

A rising risk in southeast Europe is Russia’s sharpening of conflicts to block Moldova’s effort to join the European Union. The Kremlin is escalating a hybrid campaign to manipulate three Moldovan elections over the next 15 months. Moscow last week hosted the formation of a political bloc around its primary Moldovan ally, a fugitive billionaire convicted of the country’s worst-ever bank fraud — and sent a startling flood of pre-election cash that police seized at Moldova’s main airport. This is a critical season for Moldova’s democratic allies to help it defeat Russian disinformation and election subversion.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Donald Jensen on the War in Ukraine’s Second Anniversary

Donald Jensen on the War in Ukraine’s Second Anniversary

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Two years on, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has turned into a grinding and costly territorial battle. And with so many major strategic questions left unanswered, “predicting [the conflict] going one way or the other is extremely difficult,” says USIP’s Donald Jensen. “A lot depends on what happens outside the battlefield.”

Type: Podcast

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