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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

May 27, 2025

Russia’s summer offensive could spark a new humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

By
Viktor Liakh, Melinda Haring

As the Russian army gears up for a major summer offensive, Ukraine could soon be facing its most serious humanitarian crisis since the initial phase of the full-scale invasion more than three years ago, write Viktor Liakh and Melinda Haring.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

May 21, 2025

Putin aims to destroy Ukraine and has zero interest in a compromise peace

By
Peter Dickinson

Russia’s ongoing campaign to destroy Ukraine as a state and as a nation is taking place in front of the watching world and makes a complete mockery of US-led efforts to broker some kind of compromise peace, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

May 20, 2025

US-Ukraine minerals deal creates potential for economic and security benefits

By
Svitlana Kovalchuk

The recently signed US-Ukrainian minerals deal places bilateral ties on a new footing and creates opportunities for long-term strategic partnership, writes Svitlana Kovalchuk.

Conflict
Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

May 20, 2025

How to prevent Ukraine’s booming defense sector from fueling global insecurity

By
Vitaliy Goncharuk

With the Ukrainian defense sector experiencing years of unprecedented growth in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion, it is important to prevent Ukraine’s innovative military technologies from fueling a new wave of international instability, writes Vitaliy Goncharuk.

Conflict
Defense Industry


UkraineAlert

May 15, 2025

Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians must not go unpunished

By
Anastasiya Donets, Susan H. Farbstein 

Holding Russia legally accountable for the ongoing air offensive against Ukraine’s civilian population is particularly important as this form of total war looks set to make a return, write Anastasiya Donets and Susan H. Farbstein. 

Conflict
Defense Policy


UkraineAlert

May 15, 2025

Ukraine’s vibrant civil society wants to be heard during peace talks

By
Ana Lejava

While officials in Moscow, Washington, Brussels, and Kyiv discuss technicalities and potential concessions, members of Ukraine’s vibrant civil society are attempting to define the contours of a lasting and meaningful peace, writes Ana Lejava.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

May 13, 2025

How much longer will Putin be allowed to continue stalling for time?

By
Peter Dickinson

President Trump has made a legitimate effort to broker a generous peace, but the time has now come to acknowledge that Putin is not negotiating in good faith and will only respond to the language of strength, writes Peter Dickinson.

France
Germany


UkraineAlert

May 13, 2025

Drone superpower: Ukrainian wartime innovation offers lessons for NATO

By
David Kirichenko

Today’s Ukraine is now a drone superpower with an innovative domestic defense industry that can provide its NATO allies with important lessons in the realities of twenty-first century warfare, writes David Kirichenko.

Conflict
Defense Industry


UkraineAlert

May 8, 2025

Russia’s coming summer offensive could be deadliest of the entire war

By
Mykola Bielieskov

As the US-led peace initiative continues to falter, the unfolding summer campaigning season in Ukraine promises to be among the bloodiest of the entire war, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict
European Union


UkraineAlert

May 7, 2025

Putin’s parade cynically exploits WWII to justify his own criminal invasion

By
Peter Dickinson

Putin is expected to use this week’s Victory Day parade marking 80 years since the defeat of Hitler to legitimize his current invasion of Ukraine. But if anyone is guilty of echoing the crimes of the Nazis, it is Putin himself, writes Peter Dickinson.

Brazil
China

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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.

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Content

UkraineAlert

Mar 8, 2017

Ukraine’s Got Less Than a Month to Clean Up Highest Court

By Halya Coynash

By the end of Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency in February 2014, virtually all vestiges of judicial independence had been eroded in Ukraine, together with any public confidence in the justice system. Three years later, only a small number of the most corrupt judges have lost their posts. It is rightly difficult to dismiss judges, but it […]

Europe & Eurasia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 7, 2017

Ukraine’s Rails, Roads, and Ports Throttle Economic Recovery

By Oksana Bedratenko

Ukraine’s favorable location gives the country immense potential as a regional transit hub. The country’s infrastructure, however, is in such a bad shape that it is not only unable to service international traffic, but has difficulties meeting the economy’s everyday needs. Following two years of GDP decline, Ukraine finally demonstrated signs of economic recovery in […]

Europe & Eurasia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 2, 2017

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

By Melinda Haring

Anticorruption reform in Ukraine appeared far more promising just a year ago, said Sergii Leshchenko in a March 1 telephone interview from Kyiv. “We are sliding back,” he said definitively. The thirty-six-year old member of parliament, a former deputy editor at Ukrayinska Pravda and one of President Petro Poroshenko’s most outspoken critics, wants the West to […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 2, 2017

Why Ukraine Needs Another Court System Now

By Josh Cohen

Since the Euromaidan, Ukraine has achieved some notable anticorruption successes. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), established in 2015 to target high level crimes committed by Ukraine’s corrupt political class, has demonstrated a high level of independence and has not hesitated to target the senior officials, judges, and state enterprise managers who previously possessed de facto […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 1, 2017

Not the Right Way to Bring Yanukovych to Trial

By Halya Coynash

The Kremlin is well known for pulling former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych out of hiding for its own purposes. Now Ukraine’s leaders have been accused of using Yanukovych as an excuse to push legislation that may have dangerous repercussions for Ukraine’s justice system—while not necessarily bringing Yanukovych and his cronies any closer to justice. Yury […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 28, 2017

Putin Learns the Hard Way that Crimean Crime Does Not Pay

By Peter Dickinson

Ever since the stunning Russian takeover of Crimea in early 2014, it has become popular to regard Russian President Vladimir Putin as some kind of geopolitical genius. The international media regularly depicts him as a James Bond-style supervillain, always a few steps ahead of his hapless Western opponents as he determines the fate of the […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 27, 2017

Trump and Putin: The Shortest Honeymoon Ever Is Over

By Ariel Cohen

As Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster takes over President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, conducting a bottom-up review and developing a Russia policy at the NSC, Pentagon, and State Department should be a top priority for the administration. Russia has resumed a quasi-Cold War posture. In the last few weeks, Russia escalated fighting in the occupied […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 27, 2017

What Pence Should Have Said: Russia, Not Terrorism, Is the Most Urgent Security Threat

By Stephen Blank

Whatever else occurred at the annual Munich Security Conference on February 17-19, reassurances were not part of it. None of the statements made by high-ranking American officials allayed European fears about President Donald Trump’s administration because, simultaneously, the White House was busy undermining them. Moreover, Vice President Mike Pence’s “unwavering” support of NATO was balanced […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 23, 2017

The West Needs to Call Russia’s Bluff in the Balkans

By Dimitar Bechev

For all the uncertainties about the Balkans, one thing stays the same. Every few years, the headline “We Are Heading for War Again” crops up in the Western media. The last time this happened, the 2014 centennial of the First World War inspired pundits to ask whether the world is on the cusp of another […]

Russia The Balkans

UkraineAlert

Feb 21, 2017

Ukraine’s Bitter Struggle: The Prequel

By Diane Francis

Ukraine is a nation interrupted, its identity and promise stolen by predators for centuries. The predation continues today as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s creeping invasion of Ukraine grinds on, resulting in the murder of 10,000 Ukrainians, destruction of two major cities and its industrial base, seizure of nine percent of its land, and flight of […]

Russia Ukraine