Team

Maryna has over 12 years of experience working at the intersection of information integrity, media development, and democratic resilience. Her career spans the full spectrum of cognitive work, from threat landscape analysis to designing counter-narrative interventions, building media and information literacy programmes, and shaping policy responses at national and multilateral levels.

Prior to founding The Sixth Domain, Maryna worked with institutions including FCDO, OSCE and NDI, designing and delivering complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives that not only shaped ideas but put them into practice. Throughout, she has advised governments, international organisations and donors on protecting the resilience of information ecosystems and democratic institutions, including during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Maryna holds an MA in Strategic Communications from King's College London, with a thesis researching the impact of information influences on the level of violence during armed conflicts, and an MA in International Relations and Diplomacy from Ukraine's Diplomatic Academy. She is an Adjunct Lecturer in Media and Information Literacy at American University Kyiv and a member of the Aspen Ukraine Leaders' Community Network.

Zhanna is a strategic communications expert with over ten years of experience in government communications and social transformation campaigns, and more than sixteen years of experience in research, education, and training. Her work combines strategic communications, reputation management, behavioural science, information environment analysis, and stakeholder engagement.

She has contributed to reform and recovery communication efforts in Ukraine, including public administration reform, communication support for the annual Ukraine Recovery Conferences, and the Ukraine Donor Platform.

Zhanna has designed and delivered communication training for public-sector, defence, and international audiences, including NATO-related programmes. She is a co-author of the OECD/SIGMA analytical paper “Centre of government co-ordination of government communications in the Western Balkans, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.”

She holds a PhD in Political Science and a postgraduate diploma in Strategic Communication from King's College London.

Maryna is a strategic communications expert and international cooperation specialist whose career spans media, political communications, and frontline information security practice across more than fifteen years.

From 2023 to 2025, she served as Senior Expert at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, the first Ukrainian civilian representative in the institution's history. There she coordinated cooperation between NATO StratCom CoE and Ukrainian security and defence institutions, co-led research on Russian foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) commissioned by the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency, and represented Ukraine at over 20 international events for civilian and military audiences across Europe.

Before joining NATO StratCom CoE, Maryna worked as a strategic communications expert at the Center for Countering Disinformation under Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council during Russia's full-scale invasion, where she developed and implemented international communication campaigns that reached over 15 million people in global media, and coordinated inter-agency cooperation between defence, security, and civilian institutions.

Earlier in her career, Maryna managed political communications campaigns across three Ukrainian regions and co-founded Skhidnyi Variant, a print and online media outlet in Luhansk, which she led as editor-in-chief from 2008 to 2014. She is a co-author of How Ukraine Lost Donbas (2020) and holds professional certifications from the Baltic Defence College, the Joint Special Operations University, and the Estonian Defence Forces.