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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

Oct 14, 2025

Tomahawk missiles are Russia’s latest red line. Will Trump call Putin’s bluff?

By
Peter Dickinson

Time and again since 2022, Moscow has declared a new red line while warning of the West of nuclear escalation, only to then do nothing when their red lines are crossed. Trump can now call Putin’s bluff over Russia’s latest red line by providing Ukraine with Tomahawks, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Oct 14, 2025

Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are a European problem

By
Aura Sabadus

Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure are no longer just a Ukrainian problem. Moscow’s bombing campaign will become a wider European issue unless more support is offered to Kyiv, writes Aura Sabadus.

Conflict
Drones


UkraineAlert

Oct 9, 2025

Putin the geopolitical gangster is trying to intimidate Europe

By
Peter Dickinson

Putin the geopolitical gangster is trying to intimidate Europe into abandoning Ukraine with an escalating campaign of gray zone aggression designed to highlight the continent’s vulnerability to Russian attack, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Drones


UkraineAlert

Oct 8, 2025

Ukraine’s defense tech sector must guard against innovation drain

By
Andriy Dovbenko

Without robust intellectual property (IP) protections, Ukraine may lose control of the defense tech innovations that are currently helping to defend the country on the battlefield, writes Andriy Dovbenko.

Conflict
Defense Industry


UkraineAlert

Oct 6, 2025

Putin rejected Trump’s generous deal. Time to try peace through strength.

By
Sergiy Solodkyy

President Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine by offering Putin Kremlin-friendly peace terms have failed to convince the Russian dictator. It is now time to speak to Putin in the language of strength, the only language he truly understands, writes Sergiy Solodkyy.

Conflict
Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding


UkraineAlert

Oct 4, 2025

Putin’s Moldova election failure highlights Russia’s declining influence

By
Kateryna Odarchenko

Russia’s failed bid to sway recent elections in Moldova underscores the challenges Putin faces as he seeks to reassert Russian dominance over countries once ruled from the Kremlin at a time when Moscow’s ability to project power is increasingly in question, writes Kateryna Odarchenko.

Conflict
Corruption


UkraineAlert

Oct 2, 2025

Drone superpower Ukraine is teaching NATO how to defend against Russia

By
David Kirichenko

Ukraine’s unrivaled experience of drone warfare makes it a key partner for NATO and an indispensable ally in the defense of Europe as the continent faces up to the mounting threat posed by an expansionist Russia, writes David Kirichenko.

Conflict
Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Oct 1, 2025

Plight of Belarusian political prisoners must not be forgotten

By
Craig Jackson

Belarusian human rights defender Andrei Chapiuk spent almost five years in prison and says the world must not forget about the more than one thousand Belarusian political prisoners who remain behind bars.

Belarus
Civil Society


UkraineAlert

Sep 30, 2025

Putin’s dream of demilitarizing Ukraine has turned into his worst nightmare

By
Peter Dickinson

Putin had hoped to demilitarize and decapitate the Ukrainian state, but his self-defeating invasion has inadvertently created the militarily powerful and fiercely independent Ukraine he feared most of all, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Sep 30, 2025

Belarus dictator must not be rewarded for releasing his own prisoners

By
Hanna Liubakova

Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka is attempting to repair relations with the West by trading political prisoners for concessions. If this hostage diplomacy proves successful, it will strengthen Lukashenka’s grip on power, writes Hanna Liubakova.

Belarus
Conflict

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.

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Content

UkraineAlert

Sep 13, 2017

The Key to Fixing Ukraine Isn’t What You Think It Is

By Michael Getto

Health care reform should be a top priority for Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada this fall because it can help transform Ukraine. As President Petro Poroshenko has said, “I am sure that healthcare…reforms would help [in] attracting investment and increasing economic growth,” and he’s absolutely right. In June, parliament greenlighted comprehensive health reform legislation in the first […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Sep 13, 2017

Russia: It’s Not Just Putin

By Khatuna Mshvidobadze

With Russian fingers apparently thrust into all manner of cybercrime and espionage, Western publics are trying to make sense of it all. But most news accounts do not include the key to deciphering Russian behavior in cyberspace. What drives Russia is its unique nexus of government, business, and crime, perpetuated by systemic corruption and glued […]

Cybersecurity Russia

UkraineAlert

Sep 13, 2017

Does Russia Have Hard Power in the US?

By Lada Roslycky

There is something naïve about many people born in democratic countries. They seem to take the human rights, values, and principles upon which their countries are built for granted. Dangerously, they have a difficult time imagining that their rights and freedoms can be manipulated in such a way as to threaten their institutions, national security, […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Sep 12, 2017

Russia’s Peacekeeping Proposal in Ukraine Is a Sham

By James J. Coyle

Russia has introduced a United Nations draft resolution for peacekeepers in Ukraine amid acclaim by German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and the chairman of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE). On its face, this would appear to meet a long-standing demand of the government in Kyiv and mark a reversal of Russia’s […]

International Organizations Politics & Diplomacy

UkraineAlert

Sep 12, 2017

North Korean Missile Engines: Not from Ukraine

By Mariana Budjeryn and Andrew Zhalko-Tytarenko

A new report points to Ukraine as a possible source of liquid propellant engines (LPE) powering intercontinental-range missiles successfully ground-tested by North Korea last year and flight-tested this year. As the world grapples with the fait accompli of North Korean nuclear and missile capability, the path Pyongyang took to acquire it is of considerable interest, […]

Korea Russia

UkraineAlert

Sep 12, 2017

Ukrainians’ Stock Soars in Central Europe as Employers Vie for Labor

By James Brooke

One of this summer’s big lessons is that the image of Ukrainians has turned around in the region. As Central European governments fight to block EU-mandated quotas of asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq, Ukraine has emerged as the region’s source of desirable guest workers. Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Estonian governments have set up recruiting […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Sep 7, 2017

Scarred: How Famine Shaped Modern Ukraine and Russia

By Diane Francis

In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin committed crimes against humanity by purposely starving to death more than four million Ukrainians for resisting his Five-Year Plan to collectivize agriculture. Millions more fled and in 1937, Stalin executed or imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian leaders and influencers. For three more generations, Russia kept Stalin’s genocide hidden until […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Sep 7, 2017

Pyongyang’s Ambitions Have Nothing to Do with Kyiv and Everything to Do with Moscow

By Lada Roslycky

The North Korean leadership, headed by 33-year-old Kim Jong-un, is openly threatening its neighbors, as well as the United States, with missile strikes. How has this little country, most of whose citizens live in poverty, managed to cause such a global security issue? A recent New York Times article accused Ukraine of illegally supplying rocket […]

Korea Russia

UkraineAlert

Sep 7, 2017

Will Ukraine’s Parliament Accomplish Anything This Fall?

By Olena Prokopenko and Christina Parandii

On September 5, a new political season began in Ukraine. Parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy has already branded parliament’s new plenary session “the autumn of reforms” by promising to deliver results on some of the most hot-button issues, including healthcare, pension, education, and judicial reforms. Parliament is behind and needs to kick things into high gear; […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Sep 5, 2017

Should the US Arm Ukraine? For the Answer, Look to the Soviet-Afghan War

By Johnny Herbst

In February 2014, Russia seized and annexed Crimea; a few weeks later, Moscow launched its no-longer-covert hybrid war against Ukraine in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. It is now 2017 and the situation remains relatively unchanged. The conflict in the east is at a standstill, no side has a clear advantage, and it appears that […]

Russia Ukraine