Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, PA (USA). He is the prize-winning author and co-author of six books on the political economy and foreign policy of Central and Eastern Europe. His 2019 book, The Lands in Between: Russia vs. the West and the New Politics of Hybrid War, resulted in him being sanctioned by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and barred from entry to Russia. It will soon be published by Oxford University Press in a revised paperback edition. Professor Orenstein has lived in the UK, France, Czechia, Poland, and Russia and taught at Yale, Brown, Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Northeastern, and Moscow State Universities. He is embarking on a new research project on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is changing Europe. Professor Orenstein has specialized in Polish politics throughout his career and recently contributed an essay on “Democratization and Marketization” to the new Oxford Handbook of Polish Politics.