New Atlanticist

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Ukrainians Name the Russian Army Colonel Leading Separatist Militias

By Irena Chalupa

Reporters Confirm Donetsk ‘Rebel’ Commander Is From Moscow With some inadvertent help from the Kremlin-loyalist daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russian and Ukrainian media have profiled — and outed — Igor Strelkov, the previously unknown military commander at the center of Ukraine’s deadliest separatist violence, in the eastern city of Slaviansk. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) […]

Europe’s Dependence on Russian Energy: Deeper Than You Think

By Kathryn Sparks

Ukraine Crisis Shows Eastern Europe at Risk Not Only for Gas, But Also Nuclear Power As European nations decide how staunchly to oppose Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, they have been pondering uneasily the prospect that Moscow could cut off the Russian natural gas supplies upon which many of them depend. Foreign policy specialists across the […]

A ‘Dirty War’ in Donetsk

By Irena Chalupa

An Execution-Style Killing Deepens the Brutality in Ukraine’s Conflict Until last week Volodymyr Rybak, 42, was a municipal councilor in Horlivka, a coal-mining city 20 miles northeast of Donetsk. Rybak opposed the takeover of his city’s government by the gunmen who have proclaimed a separatist Donetsk People’s Republic in southeastern Ukraine. On April 17 he […]

Intelligence Chief: 100 Russian Officers Are Leading Ukraine’s Uprisings

By James Rupert and Irena Chalupa

Ukrainian Security Agency Seeks to Arrest Russian Army Colonel Coordinating Subversion As many as one hundred Russian military intelligence officers and special forces troops are leading the seizures of towns and local governments in Ukraine’s Donetsk province, the Ukrainian intelligence chief said today in his first public account of the crisis. Russia’s military intelligence agency, […]

Weekend Violence in Ukraine Threatens Peace Efforts

Last week’s agreement in Geneva, meant to avert wider conflict in Ukraine, was faltering as the new week began. Pro-Moscow separatist gunmen show no sign of surrendering government buildings they have seized. The images below are from the cities of Donetsk and Slaviansk. A gunbattle in Slaviansk left an uncertain number dead.

Slaviansk: Gunfights, Disappeared Journalist—and the Mayor is Missing

By Irena Chalupa and James Rupert

Ukraine Crisis Centers on City North of Donetsk Slaviansk, a district center of about 120,000 people in northwestern Donetsk province, is increasingly the simmering epicenter of Ukraine’s crisis – and not only because of the gunbattle yesterday that has re-escalated tensions in the east. The masked soldiers and militiamen who control access to the city […]

Amid Chaos, a Humiliating and Dangerous Defeat for Ukraine

By Irena Chalupa

In Russia’s takeover of southeast Ukraine – which President Vladimir Putin is characterizing as a recovery of old Russian provinces lost in the 1920s – this week’s ineffectiveness and weakness of Ukraine’s government and armed forces are visible almost everywhere.