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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

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Feb 28, 2017

Putin Learns the Hard Way that Crimean Crime Does Not Pay

By Peter Dickinson

Ever since the stunning Russian takeover of Crimea in early 2014, it has become popular to regard Russian President Vladimir Putin as some kind of geopolitical genius. The international media regularly depicts him as a James Bond-style supervillain, always a few steps ahead of his hapless Western opponents as he determines the fate of the […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 27, 2017

Trump and Putin: The Shortest Honeymoon Ever Is Over

By Ariel Cohen

As Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster takes over President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, conducting a bottom-up review and developing a Russia policy at the NSC, Pentagon, and State Department should be a top priority for the administration. Russia has resumed a quasi-Cold War posture. In the last few weeks, Russia escalated fighting in the occupied […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 27, 2017

What Pence Should Have Said: Russia, Not Terrorism, Is the Most Urgent Security Threat

By Stephen Blank

Whatever else occurred at the annual Munich Security Conference on February 17-19, reassurances were not part of it. None of the statements made by high-ranking American officials allayed European fears about President Donald Trump’s administration because, simultaneously, the White House was busy undermining them. Moreover, Vice President Mike Pence’s “unwavering” support of NATO was balanced […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 23, 2017

The West Needs to Call Russia’s Bluff in the Balkans

By Dimitar Bechev

For all the uncertainties about the Balkans, one thing stays the same. Every few years, the headline “We Are Heading for War Again” crops up in the Western media. The last time this happened, the 2014 centennial of the First World War inspired pundits to ask whether the world is on the cusp of another […]

Russia
The Balkans

UkraineAlert

Feb 21, 2017

Ukraine’s Bitter Struggle: The Prequel

By Diane Francis

Ukraine is a nation interrupted, its identity and promise stolen by predators for centuries. The predation continues today as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s creeping invasion of Ukraine grinds on, resulting in the murder of 10,000 Ukrainians, destruction of two major cities and its industrial base, seizure of nine percent of its land, and flight of […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 21, 2017

The KGB and Me

By Jeffrey Gedmin

We overlapped, Vladimir Putin and me. Putin arrived in Dresden in August 1985 as a 32-year-old KGB major. He was working undercover as a consular officer, recruiting academics, journalists, and business people to spy for the Soviet Union in the West. I was in Dresden and throughout communist East Germany often in those days; I […]

Germany
Russia

UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Heavens Are Home to More than One Hundred

By Robert McConnell

In the fall of 2013, students took to the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv in protest. Their complaint was with then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who had reneged on his pledge to sign the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine and was instead negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Euromaidan was underway. Additional protesters streamed into the […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Nuclear Fallout of a Possible Trump-Putin Détente

By Mariana Budjeryn and Andreas Umland

So far, US President Donald Trump’s Russia policy remains a mystery. Does he want to set in motion a US-Russia rapprochement? If so, sanctions against Russia may be increasingly difficult to sustain. The Trump administration might judge Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity to be a bothersome yet insufficient impediment to mending fences with Putin and, […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 17, 2017

Who’s Up and Who’s Down in Eastern Ukraine?

By Oleksandr Nykonorov and Volodymyr Yermolenko

The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) are self-proclaimed entities that emerged in spring 2014 in eastern Ukraine thanks to massive Russian support. Ukraine’s attempts to retake them in spring and summer 2014 were stopped by a full-scale Russian military offensive that August. This more or less fixed the demarcation line between […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Multiculturalism Is the Answer to Ukraine’s Identity Crisis

By Peter Dickinson

Celebrating diversity: that’s the official theme of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Kyiv this May. This is an inspired choice; Ukraine has been one of Europe’s most diverse and multicultural lands for centuries. Since the Soviet collapse, this organic multiculturalism has played a disappointingly minor role in Ukraine’s nation-building efforts. […]

Russia
Ukraine

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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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Content

UkraineAlert

Nov 4, 2019

Why Andriy Bohdan is the wrong man for the time

By Yuri Polakiwsky

Despite his age, Bohdan has shown himself to be yesterday’s man. His personal profile is not indicative of the values that the public expects from its new generation of political leaders.

Democratic Transitions
Political Reform

UkraineAlert

Nov 1, 2019

Is Nord Stream 2 a done deal?

By Melinda Haring

The controversial natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany—Nord Stream 2—cleared its last obstacle this week.

Energy Markets & Governance
Geopolitics & Energy Security

UkraineAlert

Oct 31, 2019

Another one to watch

By Melinda Haring

Ukraine needs more people with rich experience like Leonid Antonenko's to dig into the data and speak out.

Civil Society
Corruption

UkraineAlert

Oct 31, 2019

Mariupol forum puts eastern Ukraine on investors’ maps

By Andy Hunder

Zelenskyy and his team delivered a clear and concise message in Mariupol: they are committed to their people in eastern Ukraine.

Economy & Business
International Markets

UkraineAlert

Oct 30, 2019

What are Ukrainians willing to compromise for peace?

By Maria Zolkina

A strong demand for peace and the direct impact of the conflict do not make those who live in the government-controlled areas of the Donbas sympathetic to the most painful compromises.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert

Oct 29, 2019

This should be Zelenskyy’s next big push

By Sergii Bondarchuk

Ukraine now has a chance to take the radical steps needed to re-build the SBU and establish a genuine security service under firm democratic control.

Corruption
Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert

Oct 28, 2019

Assessing Zelenskyy’s first six months

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

In general, it seems that Zelenskyy believes all complex issues have simple solutions.

Democratic Transitions
Political Reform

UkraineAlert

Oct 24, 2019

Ukraine’s new parliament is moving fast but is it getting anywhere?

By Melinda Haring

Ukraine’s new parliament has been in session for more than fifty days and it’s been operating at a frantic pace, so we’ve culled together a list of the best and worst based on conversations with MPs, judges, attorneys, economists, and other experts.

Civil Society
Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert

Oct 24, 2019

Is Ukraine’s new judicial reform a step forward?

By Olena Halushka and Halyna Chyzhyk

Ukraine’s new judicial reform is not ideal but urgent and long-awaited.

Civil Society
Corruption

UkraineAlert

Oct 22, 2019

The real cost of Russian gas

By Evgeniia Chirikova

As a result of the Nord Stream 2 project, Europeans will get more climate-friendly gas and Russians will choke on coal dust.

Geopolitics & Energy Security
Oil and Gas