"Understanding Russia Today: Crimea from Potemkin to Putin"

Mungo Melvin became a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI in January 2012, having been a member for over thirty years.

Mungo retired from the British Army as a major general in December 2011. He has a long association with defence policy, military strategy, joint professional education, military history and analysis of operations.

His final post before retirement was leader of the Ministry of Defence's Enhancing Strategic Capability study, an input to Lord Levene's review into defence reform. At the same time, Mungo was director of the Strategic Studies Cell at the Royal College of Defence Studies, where he edited and co-wrote the College's monograph Thinking Strategically.

Mungo's research interests are international relations, grand and military strategy, and military history. He speaks German and is learning Russian.

He authored Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010), and his latest book Sevastopol's Wars: Crimea from Potemkin to Putin examines Russia's historical wars over Sevastopol and Crimea and their relevance to the recent annexation.