Dr. Igor Delanoë is Deputy-Head of the French-Russian Analytical Center Observo (Moscow, French-Russian Chamber of Commerce). He holds a PhD in History from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (France). After having defended his PhD dissertation (2012), he achieved a post-doctoral fellowship within the Black Sea Security Program (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) in 2013. In 2014, he worked as a History Lecturer at the French University College of St Peterburg (University Paris 1 – St Petersburg State University) before joining the Analytical Center Observo in Moscow in 2015 as Deputy-Head.

His primary areas of research interest concern Russian defense and foreign policy issues, Russia’s interests in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, as well as the geopolitics of the Black Sea region. He is a Research Associate at the Center for International and European Studies (Kadir Has University, Istanbul) and at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (Center for Modern and Contemporary Mediterranean Studies; Center for International and European Law). He was a consultant for the French ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, for DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, and for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (Geneva). He is an invited speaker at the NATO Defense College (Rome).