Vassily Klimentov obtained his PhD in International History, with a minor in Political Science, from the Geneva Graduate Institute in 2020. Thanks to grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, he has then worked for three years at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence. He has obtained two more individual grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, including the Ambizione grant, to conduct research at the University of Zurich starting in 2024. 

Vassily Klimentov has taught Bachelor and Master classes in Contemporary History and International Relations at the University of Zurich, the Graduate Institute, and the University of Fribourg. He is currently supervising a PhD thesis at the University of Zurich and a Master thesis at the Graduate Institute. He has supevised six other Master theses at the Graduate Institute.

Vassily Klimentov graduated with a Bachelor in General History and in Russian Studies from the University of Geneva in 2008, a Master in General History from the University of Geneva in 2011, and an interdisciplinary Master in Asian Studies – a joint program between the University of Geneva and the Geneva Graduate Institute – also in 2011. After his Master studies, he has worked for international humanitarian NGOs for six years, including for two years in the Middle East on the Syrian Crisis.

Vassily Klimentov’s research focuses on Islam and Islamism in the Soviet and post-Soviet space since the 1970s and on Soviet and Russian foreign and domestic policy. He is currently working on two research projects, respectively titled: ‘Islam and the Making of Modern Russia: Moscow and the Muslim World’ and ‘A War Without End? The Legacy of the Cold War in Russia’. As part of the 'A War Without End?' project, Vassily Klimentov supervises the PhD of Daria Khokhlova at the University of Zurich.

He has published articles in the Journal of Contemporary History, Cold War History, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Central Asian Survey, Kritika, Small Wars & Insurgencies, and other peer-reviewed journals. He has also written multiple articles for Swiss media and think tanks. Vassily Klimentov’s book, titled A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam, has been published by Cornell University Press/ Northern Illinois University Press in 2024.

• A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam (Cornell University Press/ Northern Illinois University Press, 2024).
• 'The Soviet-Afghan War and Soviet Muslims', NYU Jordan Centre, September 2024.
• 'The Soviet-Afghan War and Islam', The Eurasian Knot, June 2024.
• 'Nikolay Egorychev's Notes and the End of teh Soviet-Afghan War', Sources and Methods Blog, Wilson Center May 2024.
• 'The Soviet-Afghan War and the Russian-Ukrainian War', Cornell UP Blog, March 2024.
• '1869, Ep. 147 with Vassily Klimentov, author of A Slow Reckoning', The Cornell University Press Podcast, 29 February 2024.
   
   

• 'Foreign Hand(s): Vladimir Putin’s Securitizations of Separatism, Terrorism, & the West', Europe-Asia Studies (in press).
• 'Between the Domestic and the Foreign: The KGB and Soviet Muslims in the Late USSR', Journal of Contemporary History, (2025).
• 'Coping with Defeat: The Russian State Duma’s Views of Chechnya After the First Chechen War’. In State-building and Historical Memories in Chechnya, ed. by C. Druey, M. Shogenov, and V. Tanailova, 211-28 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2024).
• 'Not a Threat? Russian Elites’ Disregard for the “Islamist Danger” in the North Caucasus in the 1990s’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 24:4 (2023): 817-838.
• ‘The Tajik Civil War and Russia’s Islamist Moment’, Central Asian Survey, 42:2 (2023): 341-358.
• ‘In Search of Islamic Legitimacy: The USSR, the Afghan communists, and the Muslim world’, Cold War History, 23:2 (2023): 283-305.

• ‘“Communist Muslims”: The USSR and the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan’s Conversion to Islam’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 24: 1 (2022): 4-38.

• ‘Bringing the war home: the strategic logic of ‘North Caucasian terrorism’ in Russia’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 32:2 (2021): 374-408.
• ‘The Allure of Jihad: the de-territorialization of the war in the North Caucasus’, Caucasus Survey, 8:3 (2020): 239-257. (With Dr Grazvydas Jasutis as second author)
• ‘Out of Reach: How Insecurity Prevents Humanitarian Aid from Accessing the Neediest’, Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 6:1 (2017): 1-25. (with Abby Stoddard*, Shoaib Jillani, John Caccavale, Peyton Cooke, David Guillemois)

• 'Klimentov on Stadler, "Swiss Good Offices in Afghanistan from 1979-1992"’, H-Diplo (in press).
• 'Review, State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya' Europe-Asia Studies (in press).
• 'Klimentov on Reich, "I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan: Lithuanian Veterans of the Soviet War"', H-Diplo, January 2025.
• 'Klimentov on Asinovskiy, “Rostislav Ulianovskii, the Tudeh Party of Iran and Soviet Attempts to set Iran on a Non-Capitalist Path of Development"', H-Diplo, June 2024.
• 'Review, Days of Opportunity: The United States and Afghanistan Before the Soviet Invasion by Robert B. Rakove', Journal of Cold War Studies, 26:3 (2024): 254-56. 
• ‘Review, For Putin and for Sharia. Dagestani Muslims and the Islamic States’, Europe-Asia Studies, 76:3 (2024).
• ‘Review, The Bleeding Wound. The Soviet War in Afghanistan and the Collapse of the Soviet System’, Europe-Asia Studies, 75:8 (2023): 1416–1417.
• ‘Review, Afghan Crucible, The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan’, Russian Review, 82:2 (2023): 379-80.
• ‘Review, Mobilizing in Uncertainty. Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia’, Europe-Asia Studies, 75:1 (2023): 167-69.
• ‘Review, Routledge Handbook of the Caucasus’, Europe-Asia Studies, 74:4 (2022): 504-505.
• ‘Review, Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets. Rituals of History in Post-Soviet Buryatia’, Europe-Asia Studies, 73:7 (2021): 1399-1401.
• ‘Review, Russia and America. The Asymmetric Rivalry’, Europe-Asia Studies, 2:10 (2020): 1769-1770.
• ‘Review, Sacred Places, Emerging Spaces, Religious Pluralism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus’, Europe-Asia Studies, 71:10 (2019): 1772-1774.
• ‘Review, From Conquest to Deportation, The North Caucasus under Russian Rule', Europe-Asia Studies, 71:8 (2019): 1434-1435.
• ‘Review, Soviet and Muslim, The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia’, Europe-Asia Studies, 71:2 (2019): 333-34.
• ‘Review, Russia’s Muslim Heartlands, Islam in the Putin Era’, Europe-Asia Studies, 71:4 (2019): 706-08.
• ‘Essai bibliographique, Islam, islamisme et relations internationales’, Études internationales, XLIX:1 (2018): 177-90.

• 'Guerre en Ukraine, le début de la fin', Le Temps, 18 February 2025.
• 'Winners and Losers after Assad’s Fall' , Fondation Pierre du Bois/ Papiers d’actualité, January 2025.
• 'Russia’s Vestiges of Democracy', Graduate Institute Research Bulletin/ Globe, December 2024.
• 'Le président russe accueille les dirigeants des BRICS', Radio Télévision Suisse, Journal 19:30, 22 October 2024.
• 'Élection, terrorisme et interrogations sur le futur du régime en Russie', Le Temps, April 2024.
• 'Understanding the Recent Russian Election and its Impact', What matters today, IHEID podcast, April 2024.
• ‘From the Soviet-Afghan War to the Russian-Ukrainian War’, Fondation Pierre du Bois/ Current Affairs in Perspective, February 2024.
• ‘La rébellion de Wagner en Russie, une mutinerie sans précédent’, Radio Télévision Suisse, Forum, 27 december 2023.
• ‘Change and Continuity in Moscow’s Views of Islamism after the Cold War’, NYY Jordan Center, November 2023.
• ‘A Critical Juncture in the War in Ukraine?’, Graduate Institute Research Bulletin/ Globe, 3 October 2023.
• ‘Cold War on the Chessboard’, Sources and Methods Blog, Wilson Center, 25 July 2023
• ‘Mutinerie avortée de la milice Wagner’, Radio Télévision Suisse, Journal 19:30, 27 June 2023.
• ‘Le coup d’État de Prigojine et la crise du système Poutine’, Le Temps, 25 June 2023.
• ‘War in Ukraine: No End in Sight’, Graduate Institute Research Bulletin/ Globe, 13 February 2023.
• ‘A World on the Fence. The International Community and the War in Ukraine’, Fondation Pierre du Bois/ Current Affairs in Perspective, September 2022.
• ‘Commentaire sur la mort de M. Gorbatchev’, Radio Télévision Suisse, Journal 12:45, 31 August 2022.
• ‘La nouvelle guerre froide’, Heidi.News, March 2022.
• ‘Commentaire sur la tournée européenne de Joe Biden’, Radio Télévision Suisse, Forum, 25 March 2022.
• ‘A Resurgent Threat? Islamism in Central Asia since the Taliban Takeover’, Russian Analytical Digest 279 (2022): 7-10.
• ‘Invasion. How Russia Has Lost Ukraine and Itself’, Fondation Pierre du Bois/ Current Affairs in Perspective, February 2022
• ‘From Saigon to the Mujahideen: the many historical echoes of the fall of Kabul’, The Conversation, September 2021.
• ‘Cold Warriors Meet in Geneva’, Fondation Pierre du Bois/ Current Affairs in Perspective, July 2021.
• ‘Vladimir Putin: Twelve More Years?’, Fondation Pierre du Bois/ Current Affairs in Perspective, October 2020
• ‘A Common Cause: Russia, the United States, and the Fate of “American” Afghanistan, 2001-2019’, The Stanford US-Russia Forum Research Journal, 10 (2019): 23-34. (with Thomas Schueman )
• ‘Kommersant : un quotidien économique à l’occidentale en Russie’, Institut national de l'audiovisuel, May 2012.
• ‘Echo Moskvy : un baromètre de la liberté des médias en Russie’, Institut national de l'audiovisuel, July 2011.
• ‘Russie – Afghanistan – États-Unis : un jeu à trois depuis 2001’, Diploweb, May 2011.
• ‘Novaya Gazeta : dernier bastion de l'opposition politique en Russie?’, Institut national de l'audiovisuel, September 2010.