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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

Mar 6, 2022

Putin’s Ukraine War: Russian oligarchs must face tougher sanctions

By
Diane Francis

Sanctions against Russian oligarchs are starting to work and have already caused some to speak out against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Their influence on the Kremlin is key and pressure on them must now continue.

Conflict
Economic Sanctions


UkraineAlert

Mar 6, 2022

Why Vladimir Putin is losing the information war to Ukraine

By
Anders Åslund

Vladimir Putin has long enjoyed a reputation as a master of disinformation, but the Russian ruler is now clearly losing the global information war that is being waged alongside his invasion of Ukraine.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Mar 4, 2022

Sanctioning Putin’s Ukraine War: Time to cut academic ties with Russia?

By
Richard L. Hudson

As the West imposes crushing sanctions on Russia over Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, governments must also address the complex issue of academic cooperation with Russian universities.

Conflict
Economic Sanctions


UkraineAlert

Mar 3, 2022

Inside Vladimir Putin’s criminal plan to purge and partition Ukraine

By
Taras Kuzio

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the chilling prospect of a brutal occupation including a purge of pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western elements of the civilian population and possible annexations of Ukrainian land.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Mar 2, 2022

Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine War is a blueprint for genocide

By
Peter Dickinson

Putin has convinced millions of Russians that Ukraine is not a country and Ukrainians are really Russians. This has set the stage for mass atrocities in the country as the Russian invasion runs into the reality of a hostile Ukraine.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Mar 1, 2022

New crowdsourcing campaign can help save Ukraine

By
Petr Tůma

A new crowdsourcing initiative aims to make the most of the Czech Republic’s extensive stocks of Soviet-era weapons in order to bolster Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Vladimir Putin’s Russian invasion.

Central Europe
Civil Society


UkraineAlert

Feb 28, 2022

Putin has fatally underestimated Ukrainians

By
Inna Sovsun

Vladimir Putin made a grave miscalculation when he invaded Ukraine. The Russian ruler hoped to decapitate the Ukrainian state and install a new regime, but is now at war with the entire 40 million Ukrainian nation.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 27, 2022

Ukraine War: Vladimir Putin has gambled everything and lost

By
Alexander Motyl

Putin has gambled and lost. Ukrainians will suffer terribly from his criminal invasion, but they will survive and emerge as a strong, modern nation. Putin faces a far more uncertain future following this senseless war.

Conflict
Democratic Transitions


UkraineAlert

Feb 26, 2022

Ukrainians are wondering: Where is the West?

By
Natalie Jaresko

A former finance minister of Ukraine gives an impassioned plea for more assistance to her country as it is under assault from Russia.

Conflict
Europe & Eurasia


UkraineAlert

Feb 24, 2022

What Ukraine needs now

By
Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Kersti Kaljulaid, Carl Bildt, Stéphane Fouks, Wolfgang Ischinger, Victor Pinchuk, Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Russia has invaded Ukraine. Far from shrinking away, the EU should work to further integrate Ukraine and offer it a membership perspective.

Conflict
Eurozone

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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

Jan 24, 2019

Are Things Really Changing at Ukroboronprom?

By Melinda Haring

Pavlo Bukin has been on the job for nearly a year, and he’s in good spirits. It’s not the most enviable position: he’s the general director of Ukroboronprom, the state-owned defense company, and has been charged with cleaning up the company and making its business practices market friendly. Ukroboronprom (UOP) has serious reputational issues. Ukraine’s […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 22, 2019

Who wanted Boris Nemtsov dead? New book offers new look at evidence

By Anders Åslund

Boris Nemtsov was jollier and more outgoing than most. Unlike most of Russia’s reformers, he abstained from wealth, choosing to live modestly as an opposition politician. He could work with anyone. On February 27, 2015, he was murdered just off the Kremlin.

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 21, 2019

Ukraine emerges from isolation

By James Brooke

Transportation links provide advance warnings as to where a society is going physically and mentally. Until five years ago, all of Ukraine’s roads led to Moscow. Now they go west. On land, more Ukrainians traveled by train to Europe than to Russia last year for the first time since Czarist railroads were built in the […]

Macroeconomics
Russia

UkraineAlert

Jan 17, 2019

Trump Doesn’t Have to Quit NATO to Undermine It, Expert Warns

By Melinda Haring

On January 14, the New York Times confirmed that President Donald Trump talked about pulling out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization more than once in 2018. But can the president quit NATO unilaterally?

NATO
Russia

UkraineAlert

Jan 16, 2019

Putin’s dream scenario for Ukraine

By Alexander J. Motyl

Ironically, by failing to acknowledge that everything has in fact changed, Ukrainians could wind up with the worst of all possible worlds—a reversal to the status quo ante and a return to Russia’s embrace.

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 16, 2019

Ukraine’s Euromaidan Democrats Have No Shot at the Presidency, but What About Parliament?

By Andreas Umland

Ukraine’s anti-oligarchic forces have finally started the process of forming a broad pro-reform coalition in advance of the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections. On January 11, a congress of various reformist groups announced its support for the presidential candidacy of former Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko. While the meeting was largely an event of Hrytsenko’s […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 16, 2019

How Will Ukraine’s Next President View the World? A Look at the Top 5 Candidates

By Mykola Vorobiov

Ukraine’s presidential election season is in full-swing. After the holiday recess, the campaign is getting even more dynamic with about forty candidates who have already declared. While the ratings fluctuate almost daily, the top five remain steady, so it’s time to dig in and start evaluating their various views. Below we’ve analyzed their foreign policy […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 16, 2019

The Best Ukraine Can Hope for with Russia in 2019

By Anders Åslund

Donald Trump has been president of the United States for two years, but it remains uncertain whether he has a Ukraine policy. His administration does, but Trump is famously superficial in his knowledge. Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, hardly said anything negative about Russia, and insisted on the need to cut sanctions […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 11, 2019

Two More Ways to Make Ukraine Independent

By Olga Bielkova

Ukraine’s Orthodox Church just broke with Moscow, and it’s time for us to move farther away from Russia in the energy sector as well. Even though it is an election year, Kyiv must deliver on the country’s two strategic priorities: increasing gas production in Ukraine and jointly operating Ukraine’s transmission system. After all, energy independence […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 10, 2019

Why a Comedian’s Bid for Ukraine’s Presidency Is No Laughing Matter

By Andreas Umland

Most experts have reacted negatively to the announcement that Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy will stand in the presidential election in spring 2019. Indeed, Zelenskiy’s candidacy is problematic for at least three reasons. Still, for all the skepticism, Zelenskiy’s participation in the race may also have a bright side.

Ukraine