Guests of Groong Podcast

David Darchiashvili

Dr. David Darchiashvili is a Former MP of the Georgian Parliament from the party United National Movement (2008-2016). Currently he’s not affilicated with any political parties and concentrates on his research and teaching at Ilia State University Tbilisi, with expertise in International Relations. From 2002-2003 Dr. Darchiashvili was a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. He has authored many articles and books, one of his latest publications is Georgia: Warlords, Generals, and Politicians, By David Darchiashvili and Stephen Jones, 2020, Oxford Research Encyclopedias.

David Davidian

David Davidian is a Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. He has spent over a decade in technical intelligence analysis at major high-technology firms. He resides in Yerevan, Armenia. A compendium of his articles can be seen on shadowdiplomat.com

David Galstyan

David Galstyan is the leader of the Justice faction in the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh.

Դավիթ Գալստյանը Արցախի Հանրապետության Ազգային Ժողովի պատգամավոր և «Արդարություն» խմբակցության ղեկավար։

Diana Mkrtchyan

Diana Mkrtchyan grew up in Armenia and graduated in Cinematographic Studies in Moscow. She is the author of five documentary films. Her first short fiction film, Gata, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 and received numerous awards at international festivals. “Ojakh: on the other side of silence” is her first feature documentary. The film has already received several international awards, including Best Director in France and Best International Documentary in New-York.

Filmography (selected) Le don de St. Nikolaï (doc., 2007) Gata (short, 2008). Ojakh, on the Other Side of the Silence (2024)

Diana Yayloyan

Diana Yayloyan is a Research Associate at the Ankara-based think tank TEPAV, working on Armenia-Turkey civil society dialogue supported by the European Union. She is also a Ph.D. Candidate at the Middle East Technical University with a focus on Gender & Peacebuilding.

Douglas A. MacGregor

Col. Douglas MacGregor is a retired colonel in the United States Army, former government official, author, consultant, political commentator, defense and foreign policy analyst, and former advisor to the US secretary of defense.

Dr. Dmitry Suslov (Дмитрий Вячеславович Суслов)

Dmitry Suslov is a Russian political scientist, foreign policy analyst, and commentator specializing in great power politics, especially Russia-US relations, European security, and the evolving international order. He serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Higher School of Economics in Moscow and is also affiliated with the Valdai Discussion Club. Trained in international relations and political science, Suslov began his career as a foreign affairs journalist before moving into academia and policy research. His work focuses on multipolarity, Russian grand strategy, arms control, and relations between Russia, the West, and emerging powers. He is widely published, teaches at HSE, and is a frequent participant in international policy forums.

Dr. Vartan Matiossian

Vartan Matiossian is an Armenian Studies scholar specialized in history and literature. He is the Executive Director of the Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in New York. Born in Montevideo (Uruguay), he moved to Buenos Aires (Argentina) in his childhood and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires. He has lived in New Jersey since 2000. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia in 2006.

He has published extensively in Armenian, Spanish, and English, including ten books and many scholarly articles, reviews, translations, and commentaries. He has edited several volumes and translated more than two dozen of books into Spanish, English, and Armenian. He is the author in English of Armenian Language Matters (2019), The Politics of Naming the Armenian Genocide: Language, History and ‘Medz Yeghern’ (2022), and has co-authored A Woman of the World: Armen Ohanian, the “Dancer of Shamakha” (2023) with Artsvi Bakhchinyan. His book The Color of Choice: The Armenians and the Politics of Race in the United States and Germany (1890-1945) will be published in the summer of 2025.

Dziunik Aghajanian

Ms. Dziunik Aghajanian has served Armenia through the ranks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and most recently as a diplomat, as Armenia’s Ambassador to such countries as the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Indonesia. She received her education at Yerevan State University, Columbia University in NY, and Uppsala University in Sweden.