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Ambassador Oleh Shamshur is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. As a career Ukrainian diplomat, Shamshur is an expert in political affairs.
Shamshur served as ambassador of Ukraine to the United States from 2006 to 2010 and as ambassador of Ukraine to France from 2014 to 2020. In 1993, he joined the Ukrainian Foreign Service and was posted as first secretary and counselor of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva, as well as minister-counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Benelux Countries. From 1996 to 1998 he worked as deputy head of the State Committee of Ukraine for Nationalities and Migration. From 2003 to 2005, he was the head of the European Union Department and deputy minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine. In the latter capacity, he was Ukrainian chief negotiator of the EU-Ukraine Action Plan.
Shamshur graduated from Kyiv Taras Shevchenko University in 1978 cum laude, specializing in international relations, and obtained his PhD in history from the same university in 1982. He started his professional career at the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine where he worked at the Institutes of Social and Economic Problems of Foreign Countries and World Economy and International Relations, including from 1984 to 1989 as director of programs of ISCPFC. From 1992 to 1993 he was visiting scholar at the University College London.
Shamshur has worked as a consultant and independent expert at private and non-governmental sectors, including as a foreign policy advisor to the UDAR political party in Ukraine. He was a fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a member of the advisory board of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation. Shamshur is the author of more than 80 publications on international migration, ethnic relations, and foreign policy.