Alum Spotlight: Maksimas Milta (M.A. ’23, European and Russian Studies)
In a world of constant specialization, the MacMillan Center allowed me to embrace the kind of interdisciplinary curiosity that defines Area Studies at Yale.
Maksimas Milta '23, a graduate of the European Studies Council's European and Russian Studies program and currently based in Kyiv, Ukraine, serves in several key governmental and international capacities, where he works to strengthen the country’s network of national and global partners.
As the Ukraine Country Director at the Reckoning Project, Milta brings a decade of experience in promoting democracy, analyzing foreign policy, and strengthening civil society. Prior to this role, he spent eight years with the leadership of the European Humanities University, a Belarusian institution that was forcibly closed by the government in 2004 and later reestablished in Vilnius, Lithuania. There, he helped create a platform advancing universal jurisdiction, a key mechanism in the fight against international corruption and censorship.
He has further taught college courses on Eastern Europe and Ukraine, and hosted an award-winning 10-episode political documentary for the Lithuanian Public Broadcaster and the Current Time TV in 2021. In an insightful interview, Milta shares about how the MacMillan Center fueled his work in European and International policy.
What originally drew you to the Yale MacMillan Center, and how did it align with your academic or professional goals at the time?
Coming to Yale’s MacMillan Center was both an intellectual and professional leap. I wanted to take a step back from practice and zoom out to gain a more holistic understanding of Europe as a place and as an idea. The MacMillan Center's graduate program in European & Russian Studies offered precisely that: distance from Europe without detachment, and an intensity of debate unmatched elsewhere. In a world of constant specialization, the MacMillan Center allowed me to embrace the kind of interdisciplinary curiosity that defines Area Studies at Yale.
How did your experience at the MacMillan Center prepare you for your current role or career path?
My MA in European & Russian Studies was instrumental in shaping my work at The Reckoning Project, a war crime documentation and human rights nonprofit organization. I was twice a Teaching Fellow for Prof. Timothy Snyder, including in his “Making of Modern Ukraine” course, and a member of the Yale School of Management Russia List research team, where I tracked whether international businesses have exited the Russian market following the start of the war. I also took a human rights conflicts class with Janine di Giovanni, one of America’s most distinguished war correspondents and the CEO of The Reckoning Project. These experiences taught me how to work at the intersection of accountability, policy, and storytelling.
Can you share a specific project, class, or professor that had a lasting impact on you during your time at the MacMillan Center?
I took advantage of the MacMillan Center's Baltic Studies Program as a platform to promote, debate, and reflect on the past and the present of the Baltics. Director of Graduate Studies Prof. Marci Shore’s mentorship, Gen. David Petraeus’ Great Power Competition course, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s leadership seminar were all valuable experiences.
The academic experience that I enjoyed the most was Prof. Alessandro Vettori’s Dante and the Revolution of Poverty class—an unexpected bridge between literature, history of ideas, and ethics. That encounter with timeless questions of human dignity continues to inform how I pursue my picture of the world.
What advice would you give to prospective students who are interested in the MacMillan Center’s programs?
Allow yourself to be intellectually promiscuous—to borrow from Isaiah Berlin’s fox-versus-hedgehog metaphor, be a fox. Explore disciplines, connect dots, and resist the temptation to narrow too early. Learn as many languages as possible, because they unlock empathy and nuance that no theory can replace. Graduate programs at the MacMillan Center give you the tools and freedom to design your own academic journey; the more curiosity you bring to it, the more it will reward you in return.
How has your experience at the MacMillan Center influenced your opinions or approach towards large-scale, pressing conflicts (such as the Russia–Ukraine conflict)?
The intellectual depth I encountered while studying at the MacMillan Center—combined with the proximity to people who had seen history unfold first-hand—equipped me to approach Russia’s war against Ukraine not just as a political event, but as a moral reckoning. That perspective guides everything I do today while working in Ukraine to pursue justice and accountability for atrocities committed by Russia.
Interview conducted and story written by Lauren Cho ’26, student writer for the MacMillan Center.