Nataliya Bugayova

Director of Strategic Insights

Vertical Knowledge

Nataliya is the Director of Strategic Insights at Vertical Knowledge, where she combines her passion for technology, open-sourceintelligence, and national security. At VK, she leverages publicly available data to map and monitor the ecosystems of critical technologies among her areas of focus.

She is also a non-resident National Security Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), where she previously led the Russia and Ukraine research program. Her work focuses on open-source intelligence analysis of the Kremlin’s decision-making and Russia's global military and information operations from the former Soviet Union to Africa. 

She is the author of “How We Got Here with Russia: The Kremlin’s Worldview” and "Putin's Offset: The Kremlin's Geopolitical Adaptations Since 2014.’ Her work has been featured on CNN, BBC, Fox News, Foreign Policy, and Washington Post. She has briefed national security leaders and deploying military units.

Prior to ISW, she was the Chief Executive Officer of the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s independent English-language publication in 2014-2015. She also served as an advisor to the former Ukrainian Economy Minister Pavlo Sheremeta, who was appointed after the pro-democracy EuroMaidan Revolution in February 2014.

She holds a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She is an International Strategy Forum Fellow at Schmidt Futures- an initiative of Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt, that aims to bring together diverse foreign policy leaders and technologists.