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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 21, 2022

Putin escalates his Ukraine war with recognition of separatist republics

By
Peter Dickinson

Eight years since the invasion of Crimea, Putin struck another blow in his war against Ukrainian statehood on February 21 by recognizing the two separatist republics of east Ukraine as independent states.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2022

Putin’s self-defeating war has succeeded in uniting Ukrainians

By
Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland

Vladimir Putin’s eight-year war against Ukraine has had a profound impact on Ukrainian identity and done more for national unity than any other single factor since Ukraine regained independence three decades ago.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 19, 2022

NATO must seize the current strategic opportunity in the Black Sea

By
Harlan Ullman

The Ukraine crisis has underlined the need for NATO to develop a coherent Black Sea Strategy that will allow the alliance to counter the growing regional threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s resurgent Russia.

Conflict
Maritime Security


UkraineAlert

Feb 19, 2022

Will there be a “Munich Moment” in the Russia-Ukraine crisis?

By
Thomas S. Warrick

A full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could yet be prevented via a “Munich moment” bringing together Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden to strike a last-minute geopolitical deal, writes Thomas Warrick.

Conflict
Financial Sanctions and Economic Coercion


UkraineAlert

Feb 18, 2022

Putin’s absurd genocide claims cannot hide his war crimes in Ukraine

By
Olexander Scherba

Russian President Vladimir Putin likes to claim that an anti-Russian genocide is underway in Ukraine but in reality he is upset by the historical loss of influence suffered by representatives of the Russian state.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Feb 17, 2022

What would constitute victory for Putin in his war with Ukraine?

By
David Batashvili

In order to achieve his long-term foreign policy goal of subjugating a hostile Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin must militarily seize and occupy a large portion of what is the largest country wholly in Europe.

Conflict
National Security


UkraineAlert

Feb 16, 2022

Putin has seriously wounded Ukraine’s economy without firing a single shot

By
Anders Åslund

Even without physically invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is already causing the country great economic losses. The West cannot stand by and watch this happen, explains Anders Åslund.

Conflict
Democratic Transitions


UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2022

The view from Ukraine: What happens if war breaks out tomorrow?

By
Vitaliy Deynega

Vitaliy Deynega says Ukraine has never been more united or able to defend itself and argues that Putin’s threatened invasion is a gesture of despair by an enemy who cannot accept he has already lost.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 14, 2022

Russia may dodge sanctions by using Putin proxies to invade Ukraine

By
Pavlo Kukhta, Viktoria Podhorna, Mykyta Poturaev, Yehor Chernev

With Russia facing the possibility of crushing sanctions over the threatened invasion of Ukraine, Putin may prefer to deploy hybrid forces made up of regular Russian troops and mercenaries posing as Ukrainian separatists.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Feb 11, 2022

Free trade and drones: Turkey and Ukraine strengthen strategic ties

By
Christopher Isajiw

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Kyiv in early February for a visit that underlined the deepening strategic partnership between the two Black Sea nations.

Conflict
Defense Industry

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Content

UkraineAlert

Jun 26, 2018

Finally Some Good News from Ukraine

By Melinda Haring

It’s been six months since I’ve seen Ukraine’s most energetic minister, Dr. Ulana Suprun, and she’s been busy. Her comprehensive efforts to overhaul Ukraine’s dysfunctional health system are going well, she assures me. It’s the first time I’ve heard this statement about any reform anywhere in Kyiv.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 26, 2018

What Ukraine’s Anticorruption Warriors Forget, And Why It May Weaken the State

By Adrian Karatnycky and Alexander J. Motyl

Daria Kaleniuk’s rejoinder to our Foreign Affairs article, “How Western Anticorruption Policy Is Failing Ukraine,” misses our main point. We asserted that Western anticorruption policy was failing because it had been improperly sequenced, especially with regard to judicial reform. Kaleniuk indirectly admits this by pointing to the urgent need to create an anticorruption court three years […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 26, 2018

Democracy Is Under Major Attack in Moldova. Is Anyone Paying Attention?

By Dumitru Alaiba

Last week a court in Moldova’s capital of Chișinău annulled the popular vote in local elections, which were won by pro-European opposition leader Andrei Năstase. The formal grounds for canceling the results are absurd; on election day the candidate urged people to vote on social media. This is no reason to block an elected official […]

Moldova

UkraineAlert

Jun 25, 2018

Q&A: What’s Behind Moldova’s Massive Protests?

By Melinda Haring

Protesters are taking to the streets of Moldova’s capital of Chisinau again. On June 3, Andrei Nastase was elected mayor of Chisinau with 52.5% of the vote. Nastase, a pro-European prosecutor and anti-corruption activist, defeated Socialist Ion Ceban who favors closer ties to Moscow. On June 19, a Chisinau court struck down the election results, […]

Moldova
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 25, 2018

Hunger Strike Points to Missed PR Opportunity for Putin Regime

By Diane Francis

The World Cup in Russia is a Potemkin football extravaganza or a fancy façade designed to depict the country as advanced and civilized. In reality, it’s neither. Facts are that in recent international sporting events Russia’s athletes have been caught doping on a massive scale, or, alternatively, Putin has used festivities to camouflage the invasion […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 21, 2018

There’s More to Ukraine than Krieg, Krise, and Krim (War, Crisis, Crimea): How Germans See the Country

By Andreas Umland

Both Germany and Ukraine have special significance for the European project. Germany is Western Europe’s economically and demographically most significant country, while Ukraine is Eastern Europe’s largest and a geopolitical pivot point. The historical links between Ukrainians and Germans run deep. And yet little attention has been paid to the nature of the relationship between […]

Germany
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 20, 2018

Ten Ukrainian Technologies You May Already Be Using

By Ruslan Minich

What do Snapchat filters, liquid jet scalpels, Uber for yachts, and virtual reality gloves have in common? They are all decisively modern innovations that have emerged at the cutting edge of technological development—and they all demonstrate the ingenuity and economic dynamism of twenty-first century Ukraine.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 20, 2018

Ukraine’s Got a Real Problem with Far-Right Violence (And No, RT Didn’t Write This Headline)

By Josh Cohen

It sounds like the stuff of Kremlin propaganda, but it’s not. Last week Hromadske Radio revealed that Ukraine’s Ministry of Youth and Sports is funding the neo-Nazi group C14 to promote “national patriotic education projects” in the country. On June 8, the Ministry announced that it will award C14 a little less than $17,000 for a […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 18, 2018

Five Ways the Kremlin Can Meddle in Ukraine’s Big Election

By Mykola Vorobiov

On June 15, Yulia Tymoshenko launched the start of Ukraine’s presidential election season with a two-and-half hour speech in Kyiv, Ukraine. With twenty-nine percent of voters telling pollsters they haven’t made their minds up for the race slated for March 31, the field is wide open. But it’s not too soon to start worrying about […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 15, 2018

They speak Russian in Crimea, but that doesn’t make it part of Russia

By Peter Dickinson

Away from the frontlines of the conflict, the myth of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin Russian-speakers never really needed debunking.

Conflict
Nationalism