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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

Jan 21, 2025

Donald Trump’s promise of strong US leadership should begin with Ukraine

By Arseniy Yatsenyuk

By resolutely backing Ukraine, President Trump can prevent the slide toward World War III and reestablish US leadership in a world threatened by Putin’s Axis of Autocrats, writes former Ukrainian PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert

Jan 16, 2025

Ukraine’s escalating air attacks bring Putin’s invasion home to Russia

By Maria Avdeeva

Ukraine has begun 2025 with a series of increasingly ambitious long-range air attacks against strategic military and industrial targets that are succeeding in bringing Putin’s invasion home to Russia, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert

Jan 15, 2025

Europe has a window of opportunity to shape Ukraine peace efforts

By Doug Klain

With the incoming Trump administration still formulating its approach to ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine, European leaders now have an historic window of opportunity to shape the future of European security, writes Doug Klain.

Conflict Economic Sanctions

UkraineAlert

Jan 15, 2025

Appeasement will only fuel Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine

By Anastasiia Marushevska

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an old-fashioned colonial war rooted in centuries of Russian imperial history that cannot be ended by limited territorial concessions or other attempts at appeasement, writes Anastasiia Marushevska.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert

Jan 14, 2025

No peace without security: Ukraine needs guarantees against new Russian invasion

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine is ready to make territorial concessions but insists that any peace deal must include credible long-term security guarantees to prevent a new Russian invasion, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert

Jan 9, 2025

Abandoning Ukraine would plunge the entire world into an era of instability

By Victor Liakh

If Western leaders choose to sacrifice Ukraine in a misguided bid to placate Putin, the shift from a rules-based international order to the law of the geopolitical jungle will be complete, writes Victor Liakh.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert

Jan 9, 2025

Ukraine hopes robot army can counter Russia’s battlefield advantages

By David Kirichenko

As Ukrainian commanders prepare for a fourth year of Europe’s largest war since World War II, they are hoping their country’s growing arsenal of robotic systems can help counter Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in both manpower and firepower, writes David Kirichenko.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert

Jan 7, 2025

Putin begins 2025 confident of victory as war of attrition takes toll on Ukraine

By Mykola Bielieskov

Donald Trump has vowed to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but Vladimir Putin begins 2025 more confident of victory than ever and with little interest in a negotiated peace deal, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert

Jan 7, 2025

Putin’s peace plan is actually a call for Ukraine’s capitulation

By Serhii Kuzan

Donald Trump has vowed to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but Vladimir Putin’s proposed peace terms leave little room for doubt that the Kremlin dictator remains intent on erasing Ukrainian statehood entirely, writes Serhii Kuzan.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert

Jan 2, 2025

Lithuania prioritizes defense spending amid growing Russian threat

By Agnia Grigas

Lithuania’s new government is planning to increase defense spending as the Baltic nation faces up to the growing threat posed by Putin’s Russia amid uncertainty over the US role in European security, writes Agnia Grigas.

Conflict Defense Industry

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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.

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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UkraineAlert

Mar 19, 2018

Ukraine should remove “stringent” disclosure law on civil society

By Gina S. Lentine

There has been an ominous change in the state of freedom of association in Ukraine over the last year. One of Ukraine’s leading activists, Vitaliy Shabunin of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), is facing trial on criminal charges and could receive up to five years in prison. The charges are at best exaggerated and at […]

Corruption Rule of Law

UkraineAlert

Mar 15, 2018

Sorry, Putin. Crimea still isn’t yours

By Alexander Vershbow

We must make clear to Moscow that any return to “business as usual” in the West’s relations with Moscow cannot begin without the return of the Donbas, and that no improvement in relations can be complete without the return of Crimea.

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 15, 2018

One Overlooked and Easy Way the Trump Administration Can Help Ukraine

By Anders Åslund

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Ukraine are eminent. As former US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer writes in his new book, The Eagle and the Trident, they have almost always been good. Ukraine’s outstanding sacrifice was to give up the third largest nuclear force in the world. An unfortunate consequence was that Russia […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 13, 2018

From Crimea to Salisbury: Time to Acknowledge Putin’s Global Hybrid War

By Peter Dickinson

Since Russian troops began seizing government buildings in Crimea four years ago, the international community has become accustomed to encountering new acts of Russian aggression on an almost daily basis. Whether it is masked men in eastern Ukraine, a chemical weapons attack in the English countryside, or an attempted coup in the Balkans, the process […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 13, 2018

Q&A: Tillerson Out, Pompeo In. What Does It Mean for Russia and Ukraine?

By Melinda Haring

On March 13, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was sacked. US President Donald Trump plans to replace him with former CIA director Mike Pompeo. UkraineAlert asked its experts the following: What does Pompeo think about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aggressive foreign policy? What does the leadership change mean for US policy toward Ukraine […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 12, 2018

The Truth Behind Ukraine’s Language Policy

By Tetyana Ogarkova

On February 28, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court ruled the bill “On the principles of the state language policy” unconstitutional and rendered it invalid. The law in question, adopted back in 2012 and known as the “Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law,” granted Russian the status of a “regional language.” It was precisely the abolition of this law by the […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 12, 2018

Ukraine’s Six Teams of Reformers to Watch

By Aivaras Abromavičius

Ukraine has changed in recent years. But, as is often the case, it’s two steps forward, one step back. At numerous meetings with international partners and journalists, I’m often asked where the latest positive dynamic in government reforms is and which groups of reformers are likely to produce positive results. Having worked in the government […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 12, 2018

Poroshenko’s Last Chance

By Diane Francis

An Anti-Corruption Court is the capstone that will complete an infrastructure to eliminate Ukraine’s systemic corruption and to attract massive investments.President Petro Poroshenko’s current proposal misses the mark, and fails to meet the criteria stipulated by the International Monetary Fund and the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission. Under Poroshenko’s bill, international experts will play only […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 8, 2018

The Right to Protest, Extremism, and the State Order

By Victor Andrusiv

On Sunday, March 3, Ukraine’s police dispersed more than one hundred protesters and disbanded their tent camps outside of the Ukrainian parliament amid significant criticism. Several dozen tents had stood for more than four months, blocking a major thoroughfare in Kyiv, Ukraine. Behind the protests were former opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili and former soldiers who […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 6, 2018

Torture in Eastern Ukraine—and What Comes After It

By Iuliia Mendel

Oleksiy Kanarskyy, a twenty-five-year old Ukrainian, never thought he would celebrate January 1 in freedom. His hopes had faded during three years of detention in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, after endless promises of a prisoners’ exchange between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists. But on December 27, 2017, the largest prisoner swap since […]

Russia Ukraine