André Härtel is an Assistant Professor and DAAD-Lecturer for "German and European Studies" at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Prior to this he worked as a Lecturer in International Relations at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany) and as a Political Advisor at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (France). His book and PhD thesis "Westintegration oder Grauzonenszenario? Die EU- und WTO-Politik der Ukraine vor dem Hintergrund der inneren Transformation (1998-2009)" was published by LIT in 2012. He also held a research fellowship at Oxford Brookes University (UK) in 2007/2008 and had been the first coordinator of the Master Program "German and European Studies" at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2006/2007.

Guest editors: Marcin Kaczmarski is assistant professor at the Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw, and the head of the China-EU Program at the Center for Eastern Studies, Warsaw. His main research interests include Russia-China relations and Russian foreign policy. He is the author of Russia-China Relations in the Post-crisis International Order.

Natasha Kuhrt is a lecturer in the department of war studies at King's College London. She is the author of Russian Policy towards China and Japan: the El'tsin and Putin Periods and co-editor (with Aidan Hehir and Andrew Mumford) of International Law, Security and Ethics: Policy Challenges in the Post-9/11 World.