Biography
Ksenia Churmanova is the New Generation Europe Academy Fellow in the Europe and Russia & Eurasia Programmes at Chatham House. Her research focuses on how European components enter Russian drone production and the procurement networks that enable this.
Ksenia is an independent journalist investigating Russia. For the past eight years, she has covered Russia’s crimes in Ukraine, army corruption and fraud, surveillance, cybercrime, and political repression.
In 2023 and 2024, Ksenia investigated, for the BBC and iStories, how Russians seized Ukrainian industrial assets in Mariupol. She is also a contributor to New Lines Magazine and The New York Times.
She holds master’s degrees from King’s College London and St Petersburg State University.
Past experience
| 2023–present | Freelance Investigative Journalist – iStories, The New York Times, New Lines Magazine |
| 2025–present | Freelance Data Analyst – POLITICO Europe |
| 2017–2023 | Correspondent, producer – BBC Russian |