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As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

editor’s picks

From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

UkraineAlert Sep 30, 2025

Putin’s dream of demilitarizing Ukraine has turned into his worst nightmare

By Peter Dickinson

Putin had hoped to demilitarize and decapitate the Ukrainian state, but his self-defeating invasion has inadvertently created the militarily powerful and fiercely independent Ukraine he feared most of all, writes Peter Dickinson.
Conflict Defense Technologies
From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

UkraineAlert Oct 2, 2025

Drone superpower Ukraine is teaching NATO how to defend against Russia

By David Kirichenko

Ukraine’s unrivaled experience of drone warfare makes it a key partner for NATO and an indispensable ally in the defense of Europe as the continent faces up to the mounting threat posed by an expansionist Russia, writes David Kirichenko.
Conflict Defense Technologies
From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

UkraineAlert Oct 14, 2025

Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are a European problem

By Aura Sabadus

Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure are no longer just a Ukrainian problem. Moscow’s bombing campaign will become a wider European issue unless more support is offered to Kyiv, writes Aura Sabadus.
Conflict Drones

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Sep 5, 2023

Removal of defense minister shows wartime Ukraine is changing

By Melinda Haring

The removal of Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in early September came following a series of minor but damaging corruption scandals and signaled a zero tolerance approach to graft in wartime Ukraine, writes Melinda Haring.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert

Sep 4, 2023

Jewish president picks Muslim defense minister: Ukraine’s diverse leadership debunks Russia’s “Nazi” slurs

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine now has a Jewish president and a Muslim minister of defense, underlining the diversity of the country’s leadership while exposing the absurdity of Russia’s “Nazi Ukraine” propaganda, writes Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert

Aug 31, 2023

Russia is losing in Ukraine but winning in Georgia

By Giorgi Kandelaki

If Putin is able to reassert Russian dominance over Georgia while continuing to occupy 20% of the country, he will be encouraged to believe that a similar outcome will eventually prove possible in Ukraine, writes Giorgi Kandelaki.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert

Aug 31, 2023

Putin’s Russia must not be allowed to normalize nuclear blackmail

By Olivia Yanchik

Vladimir Putin has used nuclear threats to intimidate the West and reduce the flow of military aid to Ukraine. If this trend does not change, Russia will succeed in normalizing nuclear blackmail as a foreign policy tool, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Arms Control
Conflict

UkraineAlert

Aug 29, 2023

Ukraine’s remarkable resilience may prove decisive in long war with Russia

By Peter Dickinson

With hopes of a decisive Russian military victory fading fast, Vladimir Putin is pinning his hopes on outlasting the West and breaking Ukraine’s will to resist. However, he may have fatally underestimated Ukrainian resilience, writes Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert

Aug 27, 2023

Ukraine upgrades digital education efforts

By Valeriya Ionan

The full-scale Russian invasion has thrust Ukraine’s vibrant tech sector into the limelight and led to an upgrade of the country’s flagship digital education and training initiative, writes Valeriya Ionan.

Conflict
Digital Policy

UkraineAlert

Aug 23, 2023

Putin’s Russia is trapped in genocidal denial over Ukrainian independence

By Mercedes Sapuppo

Russia’s longstanding denial of Ukrainian national identity and refusal to accept the reality of Ukrainian independence are now fueling an invasion that many view as genocidal in nature, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.

Conflict
Disinformation

UkraineAlert

Aug 23, 2023

Ukraine’s fight against Russian imperialism is Europe’s longest independence struggle

By Peter Dickinson

The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin eighteen months ago is best understood as the latest chapter in a dark saga of Russian imperial aggression against Ukraine that stretches back centuries, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Democratic Transitions

Fast Thinking

Aug 23, 2023

What Prigozhin’s plane crash tells us about Putin’s Russia

By Atlantic Council

Atlantic Council experts share their insights on the apparent death of Wagner Group founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin.

Conflict
Europe & Eurasia

UkraineAlert

Aug 22, 2023

Putin weaponizes history with new textbook justifying Ukraine invasion

By Taras Kuzio

A new Kremlin-approved history textbook for Russian schoolchildren offers an unapologetically imperialistic view of Russia’s past while attempting to justify the current invasion of Ukraine, writes Taras Kuzio.

Conflict
Democratic Transitions
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spotlight

Resilience in the face of adversity

Ukraine’s transformation

Ukraine has moved tentatively toward an open society and market economy since independence. The country has held several democratic elections and made halting progress in addressing corruption and state control in its economy. Since the 2014 Maidan Revolution, Ukraine has undertaken significant governance and economic reform and moved decisively toward a Europe-Atlantic foreign policy. Since 2022, Ukraine has resiliently continued to advance some reforms despite fighting for its very existence against the full-scale Russian invasion.

Learn more about Ukraine
From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

UkraineAlert Dec 5, 2024

Ukraine’s entrepreneurial class can drive the country’s economic recovery

The Ukrainian SME sector has demonstrated remarkable wartime resilience and is poised to be at the forefront of efforts to create a modern, innovative, postwar economy, writes Anton Waschuk.

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From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

UkraineAlert Oct 1, 2024

Ukraine needs international investors to maintain defense tech momentum

By Mykhailo Fedorov

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding defense tech sector can play a game-changing role in the war against Russia but Ukrainian companies need international investment, writes Ukraine’s Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.
Artificial Intelligence Conflict
From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

UkraineAlert Jun 13, 2024

Ukraine officially embraces English as historic westward pivot continues

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

By officially embracing English, Ukrainians aim to support their country’s historic pivot away from Moscow and return to the European community of nations, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.
Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert

May 17, 2020

From Stalin to Putin: The Crimean Tatars face a new era of Kremlin persecution

By Polina Sadovskaya and Veronika Pfeilschifter

As the Crimean Tatar community marks the seventy-sixth anniversary of their Soviet deportation, an entire generation faces the prospect of another year living in terror at home in Russian-occupied Crimea or forced into exile.

Conflict
Human Rights

UkraineAlert

May 15, 2020

Why I’m optimistic Georgia’s reforms can change Ukraine

By Mikheil Saakashvili

Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili explains why he believes his experience reforming Georgia can help Ukraine accomplish its own post-Soviet transition towards European prosperity.

Democratic Transitions
Political Reform

UkraineAlert

May 13, 2020

US still determined to block Putin’s pet pipeline project

By Diane Francis

Vladimir Putin hasn’t given up on his grand strategy to dominate European gas markets but the US remains committed to preventing Russia from completing the strategically vital Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany.

Eastern Europe
Geopolitics & Energy Security

UkraineAlert

May 13, 2020

Ukraine approves crucial anti-oligarch banking law

By Anders Åslund

Ukrainian MPs have adopted legislation to prevent former owners regaining banks nationalized during recent reforms. The move is a blow to Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskiy and paves the way for a new IMF program.

Corruption
Economy & Business

UkraineAlert

May 12, 2020

Putin’s Russia has weaponized World War II

By Volodymyr Yelchenko

Vladimir Putin has turned the Red Army role in WWII into a victory cult designed to rebuild post-Soviet Russia's national pride and provide justification for Moscow's aggressive foreign policy in Ukraine and beyond.

Conflict
Eastern Europe

UkraineAlert

May 12, 2020

Can Saakashvili rescue Ukraine’s reform agenda?

By Peter Dickinson

President Zelenskyy has appointed former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili to lead Ukraine's National Reform Council. What might this appointment mean for the country's stuttering reform agenda?

Democratic Transitions
Political Reform

UkraineAlert

May 12, 2020

Zelenskyy’s spring 2020 purge targets reformers

By Victor Tregubov

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy won election one year ago by promising to end decades of government corruption, but a spring 2020 purge of leading Ukrainian reformers raises grave doubts over the country's future direction.

Democratic Transitions
Rule of Law

UkraineAlert

May 11, 2020

Enough already

By Melinda Haring

There are other troubling signs on the horizon. Reformers in Kyiv worry that a revanche is underway and civil service, medical, anti-corruption, and fiscal reforms are all under attack.

Political Reform
Rule of Law

UkraineAlert

May 9, 2020

Time for Europe to stop fighting over World War II

By Nataliya Popovych and Volodymyr Sheiko

As the world marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Second World War, the conflict continues to loom large in the global imagination but there is no consensus about the conflict in Europe, creating challenges for the future of European integration.

Europe & Eurasia
European Union

UkraineAlert

May 7, 2020

US accuses Russia of “falsifying WWII history”

By Peter Dickinson

A strongly-worded new US joint statement issued together with foreign ministers from across Central and Eastern Europe takes aim at Russian attempts to rewrite history and sanitize the Soviet role in WWII.

Central Europe
Disinformation
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