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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

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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Ukraine


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 […]


Russia


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.

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UkraineAlert

Dec 5, 2017

Q&A: What Does Saakashvili’s Detention Mean for Ukraine?

By Melinda Haring

Former Georgian President and Odesa oblast governor Mikheil Saakashvili was taken into custody in Kyiv on December 5. His supporters eventually freed him and he addressed a large crowd outside of the parliament. Later in the day, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told parliament that Saakashvili accepted money from a fugitive oligarch to fund antigovernment protests […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Dec 5, 2017

How Ukraine Can Not Only Survive but Thrive

By Melinda Haring

The timing couldn’t have been better. Ukraine’s war is dragging on, Russia is proposing a sham peacekeeping plan, the humanitarian crisis in the east is worsening, and the conflict is receiving increasingly fewer mentions in the international press. In this midst of this dismal news, Ukraine’s deputy speaker of parliament Oksana Syroid organized the Lviv […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Dec 1, 2017

Ukraine Politicians Embrace Extreme Rhetoric

By Adrian Karatnycky

Ukraine has experienced some major reforms, particularly the ProZorro electronic procurement system, the restructuring of corrupt banks, and fundamental reforms in the gas sector. Nonetheless, the country still suffers from widespread corruption and a malfunctioning court system that has delayed major cases against allegedly corrupt officials. In this environment, politicians on all sides have been […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Dec 1, 2017

How the West Can Finally Get Moscow’s Attention

By Diane Francis

In March 1980, former President Jimmy Carter announced sanctions against the Soviet Union and a boycott of the Moscow Olympics in protest against its invasion of Afghanistan. “We call for the moving of the Olympics or the delay of the Olympics for at least a year, until Soviet troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan, or the […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 27, 2017

Ukraine’s Challenges Are Very Real, but Now Is Not the Time for the West to Let Up

By Timothy Ash, Janet Gunn, John Lough, Orysia Lutsevych, James Nixey, James Sherr and Kataryna Wolczuk

Four years since its Euromaidan revolution, Ukraine is fighting for its survival as an independent and viable state. The country is struggling to hold together and resist Russia’s interference and pressure—in the military, diplomatic, economic, and media spheres. But simultaneously, an internal contest is occurring that will determine the political, institutional, and civic future of […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 27, 2017

Does the EU Even Care about Eastern Europe Anymore?

By Anders Åslund

If you missed the European Union’s Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels on November 24, you are not alone. It was a forgettable event, but it tells us quite a bit about the EU’s state of affairs in Eastern Europe. The proud start of the EU Eastern Partnership was the Prague summit in May 2009, instigated […]

Moldova The Caucasus

UkraineAlert

Nov 24, 2017

Will President Trump Finally Arm Ukraine?

By Stephen Blank

There’s a real possibility that the United States will finally send lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. The country has been fighting a defensive war in its east for nearly four years, after Russia seized Crimea and Russian-backed separatists invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. Many experts have argued that better weapons would change the tactical imbalance […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 22, 2017

It’s Never Too Late to Set the Record Straight

By Diane Francis

On November 24, 1933, the Soviet Union threw a lavish dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for 1,500 in honor of President Franklin Roosevelt’s recognition of the Soviet Union. They feasted on fancy wines, caviar, and Boeuf Stroganoff, then later in the evening gave a standing ovation to the special guest of honor, Walter Duranty, […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 20, 2017

Moscow’s Eye Turns South

By Alina Polyakova

In November 2016, the Atlantic Council published the first volume of The Kremlin’s Trojan Horses, detailing the extent of Russian-linked political networks in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. That report has since become a guide to those seeking to understand how the Kremlin cultivates political allies in Western European countries in order to undermine […]

Greece Italy

UkraineAlert

Nov 20, 2017

Will Ukraine Ever Join Europe? The Answer Doesn’t Just Depend on Politics

By Anna Kyslytska

As they say in real estate, location is everything. Thus Ukraine, the biggest country in Europe and one that is advantageously located, has a major role to play as an international transportation hub. Ukraine has one of the longest railroad systems in Eurasia, and its transportation capacities are superseded only by China, India, and Russia. […]

Ukraine