Dr. Orlov is expert in international security and Russia’s foreign policy. His areas of research include major threats and challenges to international security, primarily, nuclear nonproliferation as well as Russian-US relations in the framework of international security.
In April 1994, Dr. Orlov founded PIR Center, a private think tank dealing with international security and Russia’s foreign policy issues, now a leading Russian and international research and publishing nongovernmental organization in this area. Dr. Orlov is currently PIR Center’s Director; member of its Executive Board; and Director of the Center’s Nonproliferation and Russia Program.
Dr. Orlov is President of the Trialogue Club International, which he founded thirty years ago, in 1993.
Since 2017, Dr. Orlov is Professor at MGIMO University. Academic Advisor of the Dual Degree MA Program Global Security, Nuclear Policy, and WMD Nonproliferation (developed by MGIMO University, PIR Center and Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, USA).
In 1994, Dr. Orlov launched the first Russian journal on nonproliferation issues, Yaderny Kontrol (Nuclear Control). In 2007 the journal was developed into Security Index (Indeks Bezopasnosti), with both Russian and global (English-language) editions. Altogether, 112 issues of the journal were produced with Dr. Orlov’s leadership as its editor-in-chief. Currently, Security Index continues as Occasional Paper Series, with Sr. Orlov as its Chief Editor.
Since 1995, Dr. Orlov took part in the work of all NPT Review Conferences. Since 2010, as a member of the Russian delegation, he has participated at the NPT Review Conferences (most recently, in August 2022 in New York).
Dr. Orlov, while continuing his work in Moscow, was a Visiting Scholar and Senior Research Associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California (1994; 1999-2002); In 2004-2008, Professor at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). In 2001-2002, the U.N. Secretary-General appointed Dr. Orlov as a U.N. consultant on disarmament and nonproliferation education. Starting 2008, Dr. Orlov has been working on the concept of BRIC, later BRICS, and its development, particularly when peace and security issues are concerned. He is a member of the Russian National Committee for BRICS Studies Research Council and participated in a number of BRICS Academic Forums; he is a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC, since 2022); of the Russian Council of Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP, since 2013); of International Nuclear Energy Academy (INEA, since 2012); and of the Washington Quarterly Editorial Board (since 2005). Dr. Orlov was a member of the Global Agenda Council on Nuclear Security at the World Economic Forum (2014-2016); a member of the Advisory Board of the Government of the Russian Federation (2014-2019); a member of the Advisory Board on the Corruption Prevention under the Anti-Corruption Directorate at the President’s Office of the Russian Federation (2014-2018)
For four years (2015-2018) Dr. Orlov was a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.
Dr. Orlov is constantly engaged in teaching and educational activities, giving lectures and expert comments on Russian foreign policy and on nuclear nonproliferation within Russia and abroad. Vladimir Orlov is executive editor and co-author of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Textbook in two volumes.
Dr. Orlov is author (or co-author) of more than a dozen books and monographs and more than three hundred research papers, articles, and essays. Most recently, he was a co-editor and an author of “A New Nuclear Nine? Addressing Global Nuclear Nonproliferation Threats” (2022; in Russian) and “Russian-American Nuclear Nonproliferation Dialogue: Lessons Learned and Road Ahead” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022; in English). He publishes his views in Russian and foreign periodicals including International Affairs (Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’), Russia in Global Affairs, Security Index, and the Washington Quarterly. He runs a column at the Kommersant – a leading Russian policy daily newspaper as well he regularly addresses Russian TV audience at the Great Game TV show of the Russian Channel 1.
In 2018, Dr. Orlov was awarded a medal “For the contribution to the international cooperation” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Dr. Orlov speaks English and Spanish. His hobbies include Russian classical literature, theatre, hiking in the mountains, and bicycle touring in the tropics. Dr. Orlov is a passionate world traveler, with over 75 countries visited. Together with his wife Tatyana, he crossed 16,000 km by car across Russia towards lake Baikal, around it, and back, also crossed the United States by car from the Atlantic to the Pacific, hiked in western Madagascar, explored eastern Bhutan, took a canoe trip into Venezuelan rainforest to see the highest waterfall in the world, reconstructed Count Alexander Suvorov’s 1799 Alpine Crossing of Switzerland, and made a round-the-world trip visiting over 30 remote islands and archipelagos of which he is currently writing his new book.
He runs his blog on PIR Center’s NONPROLIFERATION.WORLD and on Telegram “Sobesednik-na-Piru”, where he gives his professional expertise. On his web site Orloff.world he shares travel-related experiences.
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