Atlantic Council blogs

Russia Buzzed NATO Aircraft Four Times in a Single Day

By Stephen Losey, Defense News

NATO aircraft had four close encounters with Russian planes in separate incidents on Feb. 10, the Air Force’s top general in charge of its forces in Europe said Thursday.

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

By Melinda Haring

Anticorruption reform in Ukraine appeared far more promising just a year ago, said Sergii Leshchenko in a March 1 telephone interview from Kyiv. “We are sliding back,” he said definitively. The thirty-six-year old member of parliament, a former deputy editor at Ukrayinska Pravda and one of President Petro Poroshenko’s most outspoken critics, wants the West to […]

Why Ukraine Needs Another Court System Now

By Josh Cohen

Since the Euromaidan, Ukraine has achieved some notable anticorruption successes. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), established in 2015 to target high level crimes committed by Ukraine’s corrupt political class, has demonstrated a high level of independence and has not hesitated to target the senior officials, judges, and state enterprise managers who previously possessed de facto […]

Trump’s Address to Congress: ‘A New Trajectory’

US President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on February 28 marked “a new trajectory” for the administration by reassuring allies while ensuring continuity of US foreign policy when it comes to international alliances, according to Atlantic Council analysts. Trump’s speech “covered some ground that needed to be covered, NATO, commitment to […]

Not the Right Way to Bring Yanukovych to Trial

By Halya Coynash

The Kremlin is well known for pulling former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych out of hiding for its own purposes. Now Ukraine’s leaders have been accused of using Yanukovych as an excuse to push legislation that may have dangerous repercussions for Ukraine’s justice system—while not necessarily bringing Yanukovych and his cronies any closer to justice. Yury […]

It’s Time to Plan for Rebuilding Syria

By Faysal Itani and Tobias Schneider

Caught in the sixth year of its interminable civil war, Syria today is beset by a combination of fleeting ceasefires, bombings, localized offensives, and meandering negotiations. Most of the country is controlled either by terrorist groups or by a weak, isolated central government in Damascus. Meanwhile, the United States finds itself in the midst of […]

Hezbollah’s Diplomacy in Qalamoun

By Rhys Dubin

The past several weeks have been good for Hezbollah—both in their domestic stronghold in Lebanon and their Syrian areas of operation. In Lebanon for example, President Michel Aoun recently went out of his way to uncharacteristically praise the group’s militia. Though many other Lebanese politicians attempted to walk back his phrasing, the President’s words illustrated […]

Trump: ‘America is Once Again Ready to Lead’

By Donald Trump, White House

What we are witnessing today is the renewal of the American spirit. Our allies will find that America is once again ready to lead.

The Arctic’s Changing Frontier

By Peter Engelke

Our world is changing, and quickly. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Arctic region. For decades, Arctic sea ice has been shrinking, the result of higher temperatures driven by climate change. So too has Greenland’s ice sheet, for the same reason. While each new winter has brought with it evidence of deterioration in […]

EU to Set Up New Military Unit Which Officially is Not an EU Military HQ

By Jacopo Barigazzi, Politico Europe

The EU is to set up a new military unit as part of its plans for greater defense cooperation, according to several diplomats — just don’t call it an EU military HQ.