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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.


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Latest analysis


UkraineAlert

Dec 18, 2017

What Ukraine Urgently Needs Isn’t What You Think

By
Adrian Karatnycky

In a recent article the talented journalist Vitaliy Sych, editor of Ukraine’s reformist weekly Novoe Vremya, posits the emergence of a war between old Ukraine and new Ukraine. He is right. Recent months have seen the escalation of a fight that pits anticorruption institutions and activists against segments of the state and ruling elite. But […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 18, 2017

Maybe We Were Wrong about Gas Reform

By
Melinda Haring

It’s no secret that the Atlantic Council has been bullish on Ukraine’s reforms. In particular, we often cite gas reform as the one that massively curbed corruption in Ukraine since the Euromaidan. But after an hour-long conversation with Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev on December 8, I came away with a different picture. Since the thirty-nine-year-old […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 14, 2017

One Way Kyiv Can Recover from Its Very Bad Week

By
Melinda Haring

Ukraine got a serious black eye last week when its parliament dismissed the outspoken chairman of its Anticorruption Committee and nearly fired the head of its independent anticorruption bureau. But there’s a clear way it can recover. After anticorruption reform, fixing Ukraine’s dismal health care system is a second priority for the Ukrainian public. Pushing […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2017

Making Sense of Ukraine’s Ugly Fall

By
Violeta Moskalu

This fall has been an ugly one for Ukraine. Throughout September, October, November, and December, Ukrainian authorities have illegally detained, persecuted, and expelled several foreign journalists and other foreign residents, causing observers to question whether Ukrainian leaders are actively violating human rights and willfully persecuting their political opponents in an effort to maintain their grip […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2017

What Ukrainians Really Think: 10 Key Insights from Ukraine’s 2017 Opinion Polls

By
Anna Kyslytska

Ukraine is a complicated, changing country. It’s far too easy to imagine that the proclamations and positions presented by Ukraine’s government and civil society represent those of the general public. In fact, a close examination of a range of recent national opinion polls—on topics like corruption, the health care system, migration, and Russia—show that the […]


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UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2017

Why I’m Not Giving Up on Ukraine

By
Diane Francis

It’s hard to keep the faith in Ukraine, given the attempts to claw back reforms and repeated attacks against anticorruption activists. But a successful Pakistani-born businessman, Mohammad Zahoor, isn’t giving up on Ukraine. He owns The Kyiv Post, a twenty-year-old English language newspaper that crusades for democracy, the rule of law, free markets, and western integration. […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 11, 2017

Old Ukraine Declares War on New Ukraine

By
Vitaliy Sych

The masks have been torn off. Law enforcement officers and lawmakers have launched a frontal attack on the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) for the first time. On December 6, pro-government faction leaders Artur Gerasimov and Maxim Burbak registered a bill to remove the head of NABU, Artem Sytnyk. Wow, consider this: the bill’s […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 7, 2017

What on Earth Is Going on in Ukraine?

By
Josh Cohen

On December 7, Ukraine’s parliament is likely to dismiss the head of Ukraine’s only independent anticorruption body, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Established in 2015 to target high-level crimes committed by the country’s corrupt political class, NABU has demonstrated a high level of independence led by its director Artem Sytnyk. It has not hesitated to […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 6, 2017

Elections Are Around the Corner, and Ukraine’s Political Parties Are Not Ready

By
Michael Druckman and Katie LaRoque

Ukraine’s political parties are in trouble. Public support for national parties is at its lowest since the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity. According to a recent poll by the International Republican Institute (IRI), 22 percent of Ukrainians said they would not vote in the 2019 parliamentary elections and 30 percent could not answer the question. Ukraine’s […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Dec 6, 2017

Here’s How Ukraine Is Bridging the Artificial East-West Divide

By
Peter J. Marzalik

The human toll of the Russia-instigated war in eastern Ukraine, which has claimed over 10,000 lives since 2014, remains underreported. Newspapers rarely document the daily grind of life in the conflict zone, which has lost any sense of normalcy for thousands of Ukrainians who wish to live in peace. For schoolchildren along the contact line […]


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Ukraine

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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

Apr 26, 2018

Leak May Put Brakes on Putin’s European Pipeline Dominance

By Oleksandr Kharchenko

Gazprom has been making headlines in Europe lately. And not in a good way. The leaking of a 271-page report compiled by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, which describes violations of European legislation by the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, recently became a sensation. It’s not, however, because the report reveals any previously unknown facts. […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 25, 2018

What Happened to the Ships the US Tried to Give to Ukraine?

By Valeriya Yegoshyna

Editor’s note: On September 27, the United States officially transferred two former 110-foot Coast Guard cutters ships to Ukraine. However, the question remains: why did it take the Ukrainian government nearly four-and-a-half years to accept the US offer? We recommend the excellent RFE/RL “Schemes” investigation below.  Four years after Crimea’s annexation, Ukraine is still struggling to […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 24, 2018

What Europe’s Forgotten War Actually Feels Like

By Ruslan Minich

“We were moving through flashing fields. And I realized history was evolving right in front of my very eyes. I had yellow goggles on; everything was yellow with them. I took the goggles off, and then the wind started blowing in my eyes. I couldn’t see anything,” says volunteer soldier Bizhan Sharopov, who fought against […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 24, 2018

Ukraine May Be Getting Its Own Church, but Not as Fast as Poroshenko Thinks

By James J. Coyle

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced on April 17 that Ukraine might have an independent, unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church as early as July 28—the anniversary of Kyivan Rus’ adoption of Christianity. He made this prediction after the Ukrainian parliament voted to support the president’s efforts to convince Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephalous status to the […]

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UkraineAlert

Apr 24, 2018

As Some Bail, Denis Gursky Sees Ukraine as Land of Opportunity, and Thinks You Should Too

By Melinda Haring

It’s Easter Monday in Kyiv, a holiday, and no one is working except Denis Gursky. The affable Mariupol native has an anxiety-inducing to-do list, but you wouldn’t know it from his easy laugh and wide smile. We meet at Gursky’s stunning new 500-square meter co-working space in Kyiv’s tallest commercial building to discuss Ukraine’s unique […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 19, 2018

How to Build a Real Political Party in Ukraine

By Viola Gienger

Oleksandr Solontay is trying to accomplish the political equivalent of pushing Ukraine’s winter snow uphill. In a country that still struggles to shake its addiction to oligarchs and other figureheads despite multiple attempts at revolution, the thirty-seven-year old is aiming to construct a political party from the ground up. Solontay, an educator and former city […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 19, 2018

Why Ukraine’s Radical Parties Are Sitting Pretty for Upcoming Elections

By Mykola Vorobiov

Ukrainian nationalism is growing quickly, but radical parties have never done well in elections. This may change in 2019, when Ukraine will hold both presidential and parliamentary elections, which are the first national elections after the Euromaidan revolution and the Russian military invasion in 2014. While Ukraine has committed to joining Euro-Atlantic institutions and embarked […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 19, 2018

Why Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Drive Is Failing

By Tetyana Ogarkova

After the victory of the Euromaidan, the demand for combating corruption drastically increased, and new institutions were established to fight high-level corruption. However, there is an ongoing conflict between two of the newly established agencies that greatly diminishes their ability to fight corruption. Below we explain the fight in ten question and answers.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 16, 2018

Russian Americans Say Keep It Up, President Trump

By Dmitry Valuev

The Congress of Russian Americans, a group claiming to represent five million Russian-speaking Americans, recently wrote to US President Donald Trump deploring the state of Russian-American relations, denouncing the expulsion of sixty Russian diplomats from the United States, and denying Russia’s involvement in the recent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England. […]

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UkraineAlert

Apr 13, 2018

Presidential Administration Says Law Requiring Activists to Disclose Assets Is Invalid and Unenforceable, but Ukraine’s Activists Aren’t Buying It

By Melinda Haring

For more than a year, Ukraine’s government and activists have been at odds over a March 2017 law that requires activists to disclose their assets online in the same way that public officials do. The law was roundly criticized by Ukrainian civil society as well as by the international community. But now, the Presidential Administration […]

Ukraine