RUSI Europe

Dr Jonathan Eyal

Executive Director, RUSI Europe

Dr Eyal is the Executive Director of RUSI Europe and the Associate Director, Strategic Research Partnerships, and International Director, at the Royal United Services Institute.

He was born in Romania, but has lived most of his life in Britain. Educated at Oxford and London Universities, his initial training was in International Law and Relations, in which he obtained both his first degree and his Master's with a Distinction. His Doctorate, completed at Oxford in 1987, analysed relations between ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe since the end of the First World War. After teaching at Oxford for three years, Dr Eyal was appointed a researcher at RUSI.

Since 1990, Dr Eyal has been Director of Studies at the Institute, and also serves as a Senior Research Fellow and Editor of the RUSI Newsbrief. Dr Eyal has completed books on military expenditure in the former Warsaw Pact and a published a study on military relations in the Balkans during the time of Communism. He is a regular commentator on East European affairs for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times dailies and the Observer newspaper on Sundays. He has also given evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on the conduct of British foreign policy in Eastern Europe, and the teams of experts which contributed to the peace plans for the former Yugoslavia. He has acted as an adviser to the European Union's studies on the process of dividing the assets of the former Yugoslav state, and has published two studies on the errors committed by the West in handling the Balkan conflict since 1991. He is fluent in English, French, Romanian, Italian, Hungarian and German.

Balázs Gyimesi

External Relations and Communications Manager, RUSI Europe

Balázs Gyimesi is RUSI Europe's External Relations and Communications Manager. Balázs manages RUSI Europe's outreach strategy and communications outputs and produces research on public diplomacy and strategic communications.

Balázs previously worked as Communications Officer at the OECD Public Sector Integrity Division, where he managed the communications on integrity, countering disinformation and lobbying-related workstreams, and produced research on anti-corruption communications.

Balázs holds a Master's degree in European Affairs from Sciences Po Paris, a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from the Corvinus University of Budapest. He speaks English, French, German, and Hungarian. Balázs joined RUSI Europe in August 2022.

: https://www.rusi.org/people/gyimesi
: https://www.linkedin.com/in/balazs-gyimesi/
: @https://x.com/GyimesiBalazs

Stephane Werquin

Accounting Manager, RUSI Europe

Stephane Werquin is the Accounting Manager of RUSI Europe. Prior to joining RUSI Europe, Stephane served as Accounting Manager for more than 30 years in various non-profit organisations and commercial firms.

Dr Kinga Redlowska

Head of CFS Europe, RUSI Europe

Dr Kinga Redlowska is the Head of CFS Europe. She leads the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies' activities in Brussels that centre around the intersection of illicit finance and security, and are focused on the EU and its neighbourhood. The list of flagship projects includes Euro SIFMANet (European Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network) and Project SMURF (Supervising and Monitoring Ukraine’s Reconstruction Funds).

Prior to joining RUSI, she served as a Programme Director at the Warsaw-based Institute for Eastern Studies, the organiser of the renowned geopolitical conference Economic Forum. Kinga authored articles on Central Europe, transatlantic relations, and on the US and the EU activities in sub-Saharan Africa. She is an alumna of the Denton Fellowship Program held by a Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She holds an MA in American Studies and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Warsaw.

: https://www.rusi.org/people/redlowska

Dr Joana de Deus Pereira

Senior Research Fellow, Terrorism and Conflict, RUSI Europe

Dr Joana de Deus Pereira is Senior Research Fellow at RUSI Europe specialising in Counter-Terrorism and P/CVE. She has particular expertise in the realms of geopolitical and country-risk analysis in sub-Saharan Africa.

She was involved in research and project management for a large number of EU-funded projects; in addition, Joana has also been engaged as an EU project evaluator for over three years and has deep experience in risk and security analysis with a focus on CT and P/CVE issues. Since October 2019, Joana is a certified lecturer and instructor at NATO Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism (COE-DAT), where she teaches Border Security, Border Technology and Human Trafficking. Joana is also a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Policing and Security- USW, where she co-manages the activities of the first Jean Monnet Network on EU Counter-Terrorism. She is also the lead lecturer for Risk Management and Analysis, and International Security of Drugs, Human Trafficking and Organised Crime modules.

Joana holds a PhD from War Studies - King's College London focusing on the privatisation of security in the oil sector in Angola and Nigeria, and a post-doctorate in Migration Management and Border Security, a research project she managed under the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship focusing on the role of private security providers in the management of the “so called” migration crisis and its impact for the European Agenda for Migration. She is a project Evaluator for the National Agency of Innovation (ANI - Portugal) and she began her career at the Ministry of Justice in Portugal as International Relations officer within the Extrajudicial Administration Directorate. Joana recently joined PSIA - Sciences Po, in Paris, as Adjunct Professor where she lectures "Border Security and Border Management". 

For media inquiries, please contact our Communications and Event Manager, Balázs Gyimesi, at [email protected]

: https://www.rusi.org/people/de-deus-pereira

Petra Regeni

Research Analyst and Project Officer, Terrorism and Conflict, RUSI Europe

Petra Regeni is a Research Analyst and Project Officer in the Terrorism and Conflict group at RUSI Europe, based in Brussels. Petra’s expertise encompasses radicalisation, extremism, and the prevention and countering of violent extremism (P/CVE), primarily in Europe and neighbouring regions, with a focus on tech and online spaces, malign foreign funding and influence, mis-/disinformation, and P/CVE policies.

Petra has a diverse portfolio of work that includes radicalisation in online gaming spaces, disinformation and AI influence (primarily Russian), and P/CVE policy and programming. She also acts as the coordinator of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) and supports RUSI’s Far-Right Extremism and Terrorism programme. Previously, she was part of RUSI Europe’s project and research team implementing the EU-funded Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Policy Support project until August 2024, which aimed to provide EU policymakers with evidence-based data and analysis on extremism and P/CVE policy.

Prior to joining RUSI Europe in 2021, she worked in the research and analysis department at Hedayah and as a capacity building and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) officer at Trust Consultancy in Turkey. Petra holds a BA with Honours in Political Science from Dalhousie University, completed an exchange programme at the Australian National University, and an MSc in International Crimes, Conflict and Criminology at the VU Amsterdam. She was also an output lead for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism's (GIFCT) 2023 Working Group on Legal Frameworks and is an alumna of the German Marshall Fund’s 2022 Young Professionals Summit Programme.

: https://www.rusi.org/people/regeni

Petras Katinas

Research Fellow in Climate, Energy and Defence, RUSI Europe

Petras Katinas is a Research Fellow in Climate, Energy and Defence within the Energy and Security Programme and the Open Climate Programme at RUSI Europe, based in Brussels. He leads a project focused on strengthening European policy and institutional engagement at the intersection of climate change, energy systems, and defence resilience.

In parallel, he is a non-resident Research Fellow at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), where he works with the Energy Sanctions Group analysing Russia’s oil and gas sector and the effectiveness of sanctions targeting Russian energy revenues. His work includes monitoring Russia’s shadow fleet, assessing sanctions implementation and enforcement risks, and tracking the European Union’s exposure to Russian energy commodities. He has presented his research to a range of international stakeholders, including the G7, the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8), and the European Commission.

Previously, Petras worked at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), where he analysed Russia’s energy sector and the impact of sanctions on Russian energy revenues. He also worked at the Lithuanian Energy Agency, focusing on energy security and diversification, particularly in natural gas markets. In addition, he managed programmes supporting EU accession, energy integration, and defence cooperation at the International Republican Institute’s Baltic-Eurasia Interparliamentary Institute, and held positions within the Lithuanian Parliament and Government.

He holds the rank of Lieutenant in the Lithuanian Armed Forces Reserve.

: https://www.rusi.org/people/katinas