Biography

Alexander Baunov is a Senior Fellow at the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace since 2014 and Visiting Fellow at Centre Robert Schuman since September 2022. He is the editor-in-chief of Carnegie and before February 2022, of the websites belonging to Carnegie's Moscow Centre, that were shuttered down by the Russian authorities after the beginning of the Russian invasion into Ukraine.

Before joining Carnegie, Baunov spent five years working as a senior editor at the independent news website Slon.ru, where he worked since its launch. Baunov has written on a wide variety of international and domestic topics, including modern Russian ideology, Russian foreign policy, Russia’s place in the modern world, Ukraine, the European economic crisis, the Arab Spring, and the 2011–2012 Moscow protests.

Before joining Slon.ru, Baunov was a reporter for Russian Newsweek, where he later headed the magazine’s team of international reporters. He has reported from a variety of places, including the polar areas of Norway, South Africa, Japan, and Chile.

Baunov turned to reporting after five years of service at the Russian Foreign Ministry, during which time he spent a number of years posted in Athens. This was in part due to his Master’s degree in Ancient Greek, Latin, and Classical Literature from Moscow State University in 1995.

Baunov is the author of articles in the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Foreign Affairs, The Foreign Policy and others. He is the author of 'WikiLeaks: Backdoor Diplomacy' (Moscow, 2011) and' Mif Tesen' (Moscow, 2015). His best seller book 'The end of the Regime' (Конец режима) dedicated to the democratic transition in Spain, Portugal and Greece was finished and published during his stay at the European University Institute.