UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture. UkraineAlert sources analysis and commentary from a wide-array of thought-leaders, politicians, experts, and activists from Ukraine and the global community. UkraineAlert has become a major publication in Ukraine’s news landscape and has established itself not only through its quality of content but also significant partnerships with English, Ukrainian, and Russian-language media through the country.

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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

Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

UkraineAlert Sep 3, 2026

Putin cannot defeat NATO but he could divide and discredit the alliance

By Peter Dickinson

If Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to attack NATO, his goal will be to divide and discredit the alliance rather than actually defeating it, writes Peter Dickinson.
Conflict Defense Policy
Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

UkraineAlert Aug 27, 2026

Ukrainians are not superheroes with endless powers of resilience

By Lauren Van Metre, Elena Davlikanova

By celebrating Ukrainian resilience as an almost superhuman quality, the international community risks obscuring the much less glamorous reality that Ukrainians are actually ordinary people who have endured extraordinary violence for far too long, write Lauren Van Metre and Elena Davlikanova.
Civil Society Conflict
Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

UkraineAlert Aug 25, 2026

A cultural renaissance is reshaping national identity in wartime Ukraine

By Davis Richardson

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is fueling a defiant cultural outpouring that is redefining and strengthening Ukrainian national identity in ways that challenge centuries of Kremlin imperialism, writes Davis Richardson.
Civil Society Conflict

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Jul 14, 2014

After the West’s Retreat on Sanctions: Putin, Tanks & Missiles Escalate the War on Ukraine

By James Rupert

Kyiv Government and Local Residents Report New Tanks From Russia Entering the Fight A week after the European Union backed away from its vow to impose broad economic sanctions on Russia over the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, the government of President Vladimir Putin has intensified the assault. Ukraine’s government and independent reports say Russia has […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 11, 2014

As EU Decides Russia Sanctions July 16, Will the US Have to Lead on Its Own?

By James Rupert

Damon Wilson: White House May Have to Decide to Act Without European Union The United States has only a dwindling few days left to persuade the European Union to join it in imposing broad economic sanctions against Russia for its attacks on Ukraine. After the EU Council meets on Wednesday, July 16, the Obama administration […]

European Union International Organizations

UkraineAlert

Jul 10, 2014

Ukraine’s War Zone: Government Claims New Advances

By James Rupert

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has issued a map showing what it says are its troops’ latest advances on the battlefield in the two southeastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk as of July 9, 2014 (at noon Ukrainian time).

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 10, 2014

Ukraine’s Female Pilot-Soldier Surfaces in a Russian Prison

By James Rupert

At age 33, Nadiya Savchenko has served her country as a paratrooper in the combat zone of Iraq, as a helicopter navigator, and as a volunteer National Guard infantrywoman in the three-month-old war against Russian-backed militias. Yesterday she surfaced in a new role – as Ukraine’s most prominent prisoner of that war, detained in a […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 7, 2014

A Day in Luhansk: Crimes and Uncertainties of War

By Tanya Lokshina, Human Rights Watch

Tanya Lokshina, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, published on July 5 an account, excerpted below, of a visit to the conflict zone in Luhansk province. Read her full report here.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 7, 2014

Ukraine, Having Seized Rebel-Held Cities, Now Must Govern Them

By James Rupert

Stabilizing a Recaptured Conflict Zone Will Test Kyiv’s Skills at Reconciliation While Ukraine’s weekend victory in seizing back two cities in Donetsk province is its biggest in the three-month war with Russian proxy forces, it immediately poses some tough new tests for the government in Kyiv. And, at a critical moment in Ukraine’s fight against […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 7, 2014

Why Ukraine Was Forced to Fight

By Damon Wilson

The West Retreated From Its Vow of Sanctions, Leaving Kyiv No Option   The Ukrainian military’s counter-offensive in southeast Ukraine suddenly has become Kyiv’s most effective response so far to the three-month-old proxy insurgency waged by Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the fight will be longer and riskier if the West continues its hesitation to […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 1, 2014

Poroshenko’s Vow to Fight Seals a Defeat for Putin

By James Rupert

President Petro Poroshenko’s cancellation of Ukraine’s cease-fire yesterday seals a strategic defeat for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Seven months after Putin strong-armed a malleable Ukrainian leader into scrapping Ukraine’s plan for closer ties to Europe, Ukraine is prepared to fight Russia to preserve exactly that choice.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 1, 2014

Opinion Poll Shows Russian Support for Arming Separatist Militants in Ukraine

By Irena Chalupa

Nearly two-thirds of Russians in a survey this month support the arming of the Russian-backed separatist fighters in southeastern Ukraine, according to the Moscow-based Levada Center for public opinion research. In other words, the Russian people are giving President Vladimir Putin the green light to do what he is doing, even as he says he […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 1, 2014

US Ambassador Discusses Ukraine Crisis, OSCE Role

By Irena Chalupa

Russian-backed militants in Ukraine have detained (and ultimately released) three varied teams monitoring the crisis there under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Security threats to the monitors, including those detentions, are hampering the work of the OSCE in its role as the main international body observing and mediating in […]

OSCE Security & Defense
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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
Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

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.

Read More
Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

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
Complications in Tbilisi’s friendship with Kyiv

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.

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.

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Content

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

UkraineAlert

Mar 1, 2019

No good deed goes unpunished in Ukraine

By Olena Halushka and Olena Shcherban

Ukraine is in danger of backsliding, big time, and few people realize just how serious it is. This week, the Constitutional Court eliminated a law which made corrupt officials liable for illicit enrichment. This will immediately result in the closure of sixty-five high-profile criminal cases. The court decision may jeopardize Ukraine’s relations with international institutions. […]

Corruption Political Reform

UkraineAlert

Feb 28, 2019

Why Poroshenko doesn’t deserve a second term

By Diane Francis

Ukraine needs a change. The latest scandal, involving allegations of massive profiteering from the war against Russia by well-connected Ukrainians, proves the need for a new leader in the upcoming presidential election. Allegations are that the son of a close business partner of President Petro Poroshenko sold smuggled Russian parts to Ukrainian defense factories at […]

Conflict Corruption
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