Ivana Prokopenko

Ivana Prokopenko is a Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of the Environment, with a background in Russian Studies and International Development Studies from UCLA. Her research examines Ukraine’s natural resources and agricultural development, tracing Russia’s exploitation of Ukraine’s resource endowment from the Russian Empire through the Soviet era and into the present. She is particularly interested in how resource control, economic development, and energy independence have shaped Russo-Ukrainian relations and contributed to the geopolitical conditions underlying Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At Yale, she is expanding this work to explore the intersections of energy, environmental governance, and geopolitics.

Department: School of the Environment