Olexander Scherba has over three decades of a very eventful diplomatic services behind him, including his latest ambassadorial posting in South Africa, and Austria where he served for seven years from 2014, after entering the diplomatic services of his country in 1995.
He has been a speech writer to former Ukrainian foreign minister Anatoliy Zlenko, and helped him write his book Politics and Diplomacy.
Since 2008, he has been a regular columnist with the country’s central weekly newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. In 2009-2010, during the presidential campaign, he was advisor to then presidential candidate Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
From 2010-2013, he worked as ambassador-at-large at Ukraine’s Foreign ministry. In 2013-2014, he served as advisor to Ukraine’s first vice-prime-minister Serhiy Arbuzov, being in charge of negotiations with IMF and European Union. He was the main author of the address by Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko to American Congress in September 2014.
His book Vaccination from Darkness was published in 2020. Ukraine’s PEN Club included it in 2020 top-15 best books in the category “essays”. His book Ukraine vs. Darkness. Undiplomatic Thoughts was published in English by the German publishing house “Ibidem” in 2021.
Scherba graduated in German and English philology and is a doctorate in Political Sciences.
