Stay Updated

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

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Jun 13, 2018

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Saga of Hanna Solomatina

By Josh Cohen

Hanna Solomatina never set out to be a whistleblower. The former head of Ukraine’s National Agency for Corruption Prevention’s (NACP) Financial Control and Lifestyle Monitoring Department just wanted to use her background in finance and auditing to help the country fight endemic graft. The NACP manages Ukraine’s e-declaration system, which mandates that officials reveal their […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 12, 2018

The Epic Struggle of Crimean Tatars Captured in the Film Mustafa

By Viola Gienger

Crimean Tatars’ unending struggle for freedom has been nothing less than epic, and much of it is represented in the long life of Mustafa Dzhemilev. Finally, a film producer has recognized his story for what it is: a compelling tale of historic sweep featuring a legendary protagonist of distinguished bearing.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 12, 2018

Ukraine’s Next Reform Challenge May Be the Toughest One Yet

By Olena Halushka and Anastasia Krasnosilska

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) recently made headlines after masterminding a dramatic plot to spare the life of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko. On May 29, newspapers announced that Babchenko had been assassinated in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he had been living as a dissident Russian journalist. The next day at what many thought was an ordinary SBU […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 12, 2018

Ukraine Takes One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

By Melinda Haring

It’s only been six weeks since I was last in Kyiv, and yet the mood now feels completely different. When I was last in Kyiv, posters advertising rock star Slava Vakarchuk’s Independence Day concert were everywhere and he was the talk of the town. No longer. Now former prime minister and campaigner extraordinaire Yulia Tymoshenko’s […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 11, 2018

How to Keep the Kremlin and the Oligarchs Out of the Ukrainian White House

By Anders Åslund

The other night in Kyiv, one of Ukraine’s best political analysts came to see me. He asked me what the United States wants in the next Ukrainian presidential election slated for March 2019. I told him that the United States doesn’t have a favorite. Nor will it. My interlocutor was highly dissatisfied with the answer. […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 7, 2018

Ukraine’s Veterans Are a Powerful Constituency. Who Will Control Them?

By Lauren Van Metre

On February 27, Ukraine’s parliament voted to establish a new Ministry for Veterans, pending the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers. The parliament has been active on veterans’ issues, adopting more than thirty laws in the last three years to provide social services and protections. But more than twenty ministries and government departments handle veterans’ […]

NATO Security & Defense

UkraineAlert

Jun 6, 2018

Ukraine’s Devastating Problem Is Only Getting Worse

By Diane Francis

Political disaffection is not unique to Ukraine, but the lack of optimism and new access to European jobs foretells more migration.

Macroeconomics Migration

UkraineAlert

Jun 4, 2018

Actually, the West’s Anticorruption Policy Is Spot On

By Daria Kaleniuk

In a recent Foreign Affairs column, Adrian Karatnycky and Alexander J. Motyl argue that the West’s anticorruption policies are failing in Ukraine. This is false. The West’s anticorruption policies are spot on, and the West needs to dig in and push even harder. Karatnycky and Motyl are right that Ukraine has changed for the better […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 31, 2018

Putin’s Bridge to Nowhere

By Askold Krushelnycky

Russia’s war in Ukraine has entered its fifth year. Skirmishes and killings continue every week but have faded from the headlines—perhaps because they have reached “an acceptable level of violence.” I was a teenager when I first heard that chilling term uttered by a British politician in 1971 referring to the low intensity war in […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 31, 2018

How Ukraine Can Seize the Moral High Ground in the Donbas

By Lauren Van Metre

Fighting in eastern Ukraine last week was the worst it’s been this year. The uptick in violence coincides with Ukraine’s transition of the command of the war from its security forces to its armed forces, which is part of the implementation of Ukraine’s new law on reintegration. While much of the new law has not […]

Russia Ukraine

spotlight

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.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

Follow us on social media
and support our work

Content

UkraineAlert

Sep 1, 2020

Pro-Kremlin MPs and oligarchs wage lawfare on Ukraine’s reform agenda

By Tetiana Shevchuk

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court has declared the 2015 appointment of Artem Sytnyk as director of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) unconstitutional, placing the country's reform agenda in doubt.

Corruption Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert

Aug 25, 2020

How Ukraine can go from brain drain to brain gain

By Anton Waschuk and Andriy Kamenetskyy

Highly skilled Ukrainians continue to leave the country in order to further their careers. Greater efforts are required to keep this key demographic in the country for the benefit of the wider Ukrainian economy.

Economy & Business Education

UkraineAlert

Aug 22, 2020

Top Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskiy faces growing international legal troubles

By Diane Francis

Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskiy is facing growing international legal troubles as a range of investigations into alleged corrupt practices at his former bank PrivatBank continue to gain momentum.

Corruption Financial Regulation

UkraineAlert

Aug 21, 2020

Navalny joins long list of poisoned Putin critics

By Peter Dickinson

Expert Opinion: What does the suspected poisoning of Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny tell us about the current political climate in Putin’s Russia?

Russia

BelarusAlert

Aug 20, 2020

Lukashenka is wrong to use Ukraine as a cautionary tale

By Paul Niland

Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka has warned that pro-democracy protests will turn Belarus into another Ukraine - but Ukaine's woes are due to Russian aggression not the country's 2014 revolution.

Belarus Conflict

UkraineAlert

Aug 20, 2020

Vladimir Putin’s forever war against Ukraine continues

By Taras Kuzio

While geopolitical attention focuses on Belarus, Putin’s hybrid war in neighboring Ukraine continues. It has already sparked the outbreak of a new Cold War, and there is currently no end in sight to the conflict.

Conflict Disinformation

BelarusAlert

Aug 17, 2020

Alarm bells in Ukraine as Lukashenka calls on Putin to rescue his crumbling regime

By Bohdan Nahaylo

Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka is on the verge of being swept out of office by a wave of pro-democracy protests. He has called on Putin to save his regime, sparking alarm in neighboring Ukraine.

Belarus Conflict

UkraineAlert

Aug 13, 2020

Front line communities and Ukraine’s local elections

By Andreas Umland

Ukraine plans to hold nationwide local elections in October 2020, but areas close to the front lines of the conflict with Russia in the east of the country will not participate. How can these regions be best managed?

Conflict Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert

Aug 13, 2020

Ukraine must address the legal ambiguity enabling Putin’s not-so-secret war

By Wayne Jordash

Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine is one of the world's worst-kept secrets, but a failure to end the legal ambiguity shrouding Russia's role in the ongoing conflict makes progress towards peace impossible.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert

Aug 11, 2020

Zelenskyy’s old new faces

By Adrian Karatnycky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to power in 2019 promising a new era in Ukrainian politics but the recent appointment of figures from the discredited past raises questions about this fresh start.

Democratic Transitions Political Reform