Katsiaryna Shmatsina

Katsiaryna Shmatsina is a Eurasia fellow at Lawfare, specializing in Belarus, Russia, and international security. She is a Belarusian-trained lawyer turned political analyst with over a decade of experience in Belarusian and European think tanks, serving as a researcher and political consultant. Among other roles, she was a Rethink.CEE Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and worked with the International Republican Institute and the American Bar Association. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at Virginia Tech in Washington, D.C. Shmatsina is among 20 Belarusian scholars prosecuted in absentia by the Lukashenka regime in a politically motivated trial recognized by human rights groups, the Council of Europe, and the U.S. State Department. She is also listed on Russia’s federal wanted list.