Amb. (ret.) Marie L. Yovanovitch: Ukraine - Can Democracy Survive?

Ambassador (ret.) Marie L. Yovanovitch is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

She served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine for three years, from 2016 to 2019. Her memoir, Lessons from the Edge, documents how she was abruptly recalled from Ukraine by the Trump administration in April 2019 and subsequently testified in the first impeachment of President Trump in November 2019.

She previously served as Ambassador to the Republic of Armenia (2008-2011) and the Kyrgyz Republic (2005-2008). From 2012-2013, Ambassador Yovanovitch was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she was responsible for policy on European and global security issues. She also served as the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2004-2005. She retired from the Department of State as a Career Minister in January 2020.

Ambassador Yovanovitch served as the Dean of the Language School at the Foreign Service Institute, as well as International Advisor and Deputy Commandant at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University, where she also taught national security strategy. She began her career in Ottawa, followed by overseas assignments in Moscow, London and Mogadishu, and at the Department of State as Deputy Director of the Russian Desk.

A graduate of Princeton University with a master’s degree from the National Defense University, Ambassador Yovanovitch received numerous Presidential and State Department awards, including the Secretary’s Diplomacy in Human Rights Award.