David Schlaefer is the Principal Director for Ukraine in the US State Department’s Office for Global Criminal Justice and the incoming Senior Assistance Coordinator at the US Embassy in Kyiv. He was assigned to the US Embassy in Kyiv during Russia’s full-scale invasion and worked on a wide range of assistance-related issues from Poland and Ukraine during the conflict’s first year, including leading the Embassy’s remote platform in Rzeszow for several months. His role as assistance coordinator involves integrating the more than $70 billion in all-kind security, humanitarian, and technical assistance that the United States has provided to Ukraine into strategic planning mechanisms and ensuring effective oversight. He has also played a significant role in policy and programing efforts aimed at war crimes accountability in Ukraine. Prior to his assignments in Ukraine, David served as the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and as Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, David has been a diplomat for almost three decades and served in Brazil, Mexico, Finland, Iraq, Japan, Romania, Poland, and Ukraine.
