Yurii Poita is a Senior Associate Fellow at MERICS. He specializes in China’s involvement in the Russian-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian-Chinese relations, mutual influence and connections between the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, as well as the security situation surrounding China and Taiwan. Within MERICS, he studies how the China-Russia strategic partnership affects the security situation in Europe.

Yurii is also the Head of the Asia-Pacific Section at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies (CACDS) in Kyiv.

Prior to joining MERICS, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research under the MOFA Taiwan Fellowship. Yurii studied Military Sciences at the Zhytomyr Military Institute, International Relations at Kyiv International University, and Political Science at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. He also studied the Chinese language at National Taiwan Normal University.