Hanna Oliinyk

Hanna Oliinyk is a DPhil student in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research examines the role of law in shaping collective memory and identity in territories of Ukraine that are currently occupied by Russia. It explores how legal institutions and frameworks are mobilised to legitimise authority, construct narratives of the past, and define belonging under occupation. Her doctoral studies are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership (GUDTP).

Alongside her doctoral research, Hanna is a Researcher in Sociology of Human Rights on the project ‘Mobilizing Human Rights and Resistance: Media, Law, and Accountability in Wartime Ukraine’, funded by the UKRI Network Plus programme ‘Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition.’ She previously worked as a Research Assistant on the UKRI-funded project ‘Human Rights in Eastern Europe and Russia (HuRiEE)’ (2023–2025), both led by Dr Agnieszka Kubal at the University of Oxford. Within HuRiEE, Hanna led the Ukrainian component of the research, conducting extensive fieldwork with legal professionals, managing data collection, coding and analysis, and preparing research reports and contributing to publications. She is a contributor to the forthcoming book Who Are the Humans Behind Human Rights? Historical and Comparative Perspectives on Eastern Europe and Russia (UCL Press, forthcoming 2026).

Before joining Oxford, Hanna held research and leadership roles across academia, civil society, and media. She consulted for the Norwegian Defence University College (Contested Ukraine project), preparing a report on the military-patriotic infrastructure established by Russian proxy regimes in Eastern Ukraine (2014–2021), and contributed to The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. Hanna also headed the Ukrainian Studies and UA–UK Academic Diaspora Program at the President of Ukraine’s Fund for the Support of Education, Science and Sports, and previously directed a Ukrainian NGO, designing and leading projects on memory culture, transitional justice, and the openness of Soviet security service archives. She collaborated with the London School of Economics’ Arena Programme on the project “From ‘Memory Wars’ to a Common Future: Overcoming Polarisation in Ukraine.”

Hanna holds an MA in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics (Distinction) from University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies (2022) and an MA in Political Science (Distinction) from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (2016). She is a Chevening Scholar (2021–22) and alumna of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (2019).

Her broader research interests include the sociology of human rights, memory politics, transitional justice, cognitive warfare, and questions of international security and defence.