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

Apr 16, 2022

Never Again?

By Victor Pinchuk

Ever since the Nazi Holocaust, German leaders have declared "never again," but they are now guilty of failing to prevent Russia from committing a new genocide in Ukraine, says Victor Pinchuk.

Conflict Economy & Business

UkraineAlert

Apr 14, 2022

The world must not allow Putin to bankrupt Ukraine into surrender

By Peter Dickinson

Russian war crimes in Ukraine have shocked the world but the systematic damage being done to the Ukrainian economy is also an important element of Putin's invasion that requires urgent international attention.

Conflict Economy & Business

UkraineAlert

Apr 13, 2022

Memo to Macron: Putin’s Ukraine genocide is not the act of a brother

By Peter Dickinson

French President Emmanuel Macron has refused to describe the mass killing of Ukrainians by Russian soldiers as genocide despite overwhelming evidence of Putin's intention to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert

Apr 12, 2022

Europe must stop funding Vladimir Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine

By Basil Kalymon

While the international community condemns Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, European countries continue to fund the war by paying Russia EUR 1 billion every day for oil and gas supplies.

Conflict Energy Transitions

UkraineAlert

Apr 11, 2022

At what point do Russian war crimes in Ukraine qualify as genocide?

By Bohdan Vitvitsky

Evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has shocked the world but there is not yet any international consensus over whether the mass killings of Ukrainians carried out by Vladimir Putin's troops qualify as genocide.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert

Apr 9, 2022

Lend-Lease for Ukraine: US revives WWII anti-Hitler policy to defeat Putin

By Chris Alexander

The United States is reviving the WWII Lend-Lease program which helped defeat Hitler in order to dramatically increase arms deliveries to Ukraine and set the stage for Vladimir Putin's eventual military defeat.

Arms Control Conflict

UkraineAlert

Apr 8, 2022

Perseverance can bring Russian war criminals including Putin to justice

By Thomas S. Warrick

Patience and perseverance are vital as efforts get underway to bring Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian military to justice for crimes against humanity committed during the war in Ukraine.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert

Apr 7, 2022

Rebuilding Ukraine: EU must prepare to lead the post-war recovery

By Janez Kopač

The European Union is expected to play a key role in efforts to rebuild Ukraine following the end of the current war with Putin's Russia but at present the EU is unprepared for this major institutional challenge.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert

Apr 6, 2022

Genocide in Ukraine: Putin will not stop until the world stops him

By Mykhailo Tkach

If Western leaders wish to defend the rules-based order that has served them all so well since WWII, they must urgently do so in Ukraine by supplying the country with the offensive weapons needed to defeat Russia.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert

Apr 5, 2022

Zelenskyy tells UN: Act now on Russia or dissolve yourself altogether

By Oleksii Riabchyn

President Zelenskyy has called for the wholesale reform of the United Nations in an emotional address to the UN Security Council marked by scathing criticism of its toothless response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Conflict European Union

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

Mar 18, 2019

Too little, too late

By Anders Åslund

On November 25, the Russian Coast Guard attacked and illegally seized three Ukrainian naval vessels on international waters in the Black Sea. The twenty-four Ukrainian sailors on board were arrested for having violated Russian territorial waters and jailed in the nineteenth century KGB prison Lefortovo in Moscow. These Ukrainian sailors were on Ukrainian vessels going […]

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert

Mar 14, 2019

Brilliant, broke, and Ukrainian? Harvard still wants to hear from you

By Melinda Haring

Eighteen-year-old Tetiana Tsunik, who grew up in a tiny village in eastern Ukraine, won a full ride to the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, a well-regarded prep school. There she’s taking two Advanced Placement courses plus six others. She’s part of the debate club, and is editor-in-chief of two student publications. Last summer, she spent […]

Civil Society Migration

UkraineAlert

Mar 12, 2019

Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

By Tamar Chapidze and Andreas Umland

Georgia and Ukraine have become close political allies over the last two decades. That closeness may be currently under threat, however. Despite the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s groundbreaking autocephaly, or independence, from the Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of 2019, the Georgian Orthodox Church has failed to congratulate Ukrainian authorities or take any official position […]

Civil Society Nationalism

UkraineAlert

Mar 12, 2019

Why the West should be worried about Ukraine’s flagging fight against graft

By Oleksandra Drik

The last week of February was a great one for corrupt officials in Ukraine. They finally got off scot-free. Ukraine’s Constitutional Court (CCU) eliminated criminal liability for illicit enrichment. This decision is a major step back in Ukraine’s struggle to fight high-level corruption. (Incidentally, the US Ambassador to Ukraine agrees with this assessment.) And the […]

Corruption Political Reform

UkraineAlert

Mar 7, 2019

What a $2.8 Million scheme to rip off the state says about corruption in Ukraine

By Matthew Kupfer

Fictional houses, “dead souls,” but real embezzlement — it sounds like the plot of a horror film. But it’s actually a corruption scheme that ran for over eight years in Ukraine’s Kirovograd Oblast. From 2009 to 2017, the management of the regional gas distribution company, Kirovogradgaz, inserted hundreds of fictional addresses into its electronic billing […]

Corruption Oil and Gas

UkraineAlert

Mar 6, 2019

Could Zelenskiy be a reformer?

By Alexander J. Motyl

Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy tops the polls in Ukraine and may be the next president. Some argue that Zelenskiy is the country’s only shot at reform and that he might be able to break the old system.     Could Zelenskiy be a reformer? The short answer is: No. Here’s why. The American political scientist, Samuel Huntington, […]

Elections Political Reform

UkraineAlert

Mar 5, 2019

European involvement with Nord Stream 2 is a deal with the devil

By Stephen Blank

Apart from the bypassing of Ukraine and the potential corrupting of German politics, Nord Stream 2 essentially forces German and Eastern European states and customers to subsidize Russian state expenses and unwittingly assist in Naftogaz’s destruction.

Energy Markets & Governance European Union

UkraineAlert

Mar 5, 2019

Their brand is crisis

By Melinda Haring

Exactly five years ago, the country’s most important independent crisis communications center was set up in Kyiv in less than forty-eight hours. It started with a text message and a series of phone calls. Shortly after the protesters in the Maidan won and former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych fled on February 22, 2014, Russia’s “little […]

Civil Society Democratic Transitions

UkraineAlert

Mar 4, 2019

Why do so few presidential candidates support NATO and EU membership?

By Taras Kuzio

Out of forty-two candidates who are running for president in the Ukrainian elections on March 31, only eleven support NATO and EU membership. This represents a lower proportion of supporters than the over 300 deputies who voted on three occasions to change the constitution to include those two goals. Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party and the Radical […]

Defense Policy Elections

UkraineAlert

Mar 4, 2019

Who is ready to lead Ukraine?

By Kostiantyn Romashko

It’s election season in Ukraine. While there are forty-two candidates officially registered, the competition, according to recent polls, comes down to three: incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and newcomer and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In January, UkraineAlert examined the foreign policy views of the five leading candidates. Now we narrow the focus […]

Defense Policy Elections