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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Dec 24, 2025

The art of war is undergoing a technological revolution in Ukraine

By
Oleg Dunda

Ukraine’s battlefield experience since 2022 confirms that in order to be successful in modern warfare, armies should model themselves on technological giants like Amazon and SpaceX, writes Oleg Dunda.

Conflict
Cybersecurity


UkraineAlert

Dec 23, 2025

Reclaiming Russia’s ‘historical lands’: How far do Putin’s imperial ambitions extend?

By
Peter Dickinson

Putin has again vowed to “liberate Russia’s historical lands” via negotiations or military means. The list of countries that could qualify as “historically Russian” in Putin’s revisionist worldview is long and extends far beyond Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Central Europe
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Dec 18, 2025

Prisoner releases are welcome news but talk of a Belarus thaw is premature

By
Hanna Liubakova

The freeing of 123 political prisoners in Belarus last week is encouraging news but should not be interpreted as an indication of more fundamental change, writes Hanna Liubakova.

Belarus
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Dec 18, 2025

What’s in the new US defense bill for Ukraine?

By
Doug Klain

The NDAA includes the best legislative support from Congress that Ukraine has received all year. At the same time, it also underscores the dramatic reduction in overall US support for Ukraine during 2025, writes Doug Klain.

Conflict
Human Rights


UkraineAlert

Dec 16, 2025

‘Putin is lying’: Zelenskyy visits front to expose false claims of Russian gains

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid a personal visit last week to a front line city that Putin has repeatedly bragged of seizing in order to expose the Russian leader’s habit of lying about battlefield gains, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Dec 16, 2025

The only winner from Ukrainian wartime elections would be Putin

By
Yuriy Boyechko

Ukrainians are fighting to defend their democracy against Kremlin authoritarianism, but they are also in no rush to hold wartime elections amid relentless Russian bombardment and with millions of Ukrainians displaced, writes Yuriy Boyechko.

Conflict
Elections


UkraineAlert

Dec 11, 2025

Russia’s insistence on a defenseless Ukraine betrays Putin’s true intentions

By
Peter Dickinson

Russia’s key demands during US-led peace talks all appear designed to leave Ukraine disarmed and defenseless. This is a clear indication of Vladimir Putin’s intention to continue his invasion and complete the conquest of Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Dec 10, 2025

Russian drones and blackouts test the resilience of Ukraine’s second city

By
Maria Avdeeva

With Putin’s army now advancing to the east and the Russian bombardment of civilian targets intensifying, Kharkiv residents are now facing what may become the most difficult winter of the entire war, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Defense Technologies
Drones


UkraineAlert

Dec 9, 2025

Europe’s choice: Fund Ukraine now or pay a far higher price if Russia wins

By
Elena Davlikanova, Lesia Orobets

Europe’s reluctance to pay for Ukraine’s defense is shortsighted, write Elena Davlikanova and Lesia Orobets. If Russia’s invasion succeeds, Europe will soon have to boost defense spending to levels that would completely dwarf the current cost of backing Ukraine.

Conflict
European Union


UkraineAlert

Dec 8, 2025

Ukraine’s wartime experience provides blueprint for infrastructure protection

By
Oleksandr Bakalinskyi, Maggie McDonough

Since 2014, Ukraine’s critical infrastructure has faced sustained and increasingly sophisticated attacks but continues to function, adapt, and evolve, offering the world one of the most comprehensive case studies for resilience under unrelenting cyber-kinetic pressure, write Oleksandr Bakalinskyi and Maggie McDonough.

Conflict
Cybersecurity

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spotlight

Resilience in the face of adversity

Ukraine’s transformation

Ukraine has moved tentatively toward an open society and market economy since independence. The country has held several democratic elections and made halting progress in addressing corruption and state control in its economy. Since the 2014 Maidan Revolution, Ukraine has undertaken significant governance and economic reform and moved decisively toward a Europe-Atlantic foreign policy. Since 2022, Ukraine has resiliently continued to advance some reforms despite fighting for its very existence against the full-scale Russian invasion.

Learn more about Ukraine

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

UkraineAlert
Dec 5, 2024

Ukraine’s entrepreneurial class can drive the country’s economic recovery

The Ukrainian SME sector has demonstrated remarkable wartime resilience and is poised to be at the forefront of efforts to create a modern, innovative, postwar economy, writes Anton Waschuk.

Read More

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

UkraineAlert
Oct 1, 2024

Ukraine needs international investors to maintain defense tech momentum

By
Mykhailo Fedorov

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding defense tech sector can play a game-changing role in the war against Russia but Ukrainian companies need international investment, writes Ukraine’s Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.

Artificial Intelligence
Conflict

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

UkraineAlert
Jun 13, 2024

Ukraine officially embraces English as historic westward pivot continues

By
Oleksiy Goncharenko

By officially embracing English, Ukrainians aim to support their country’s historic pivot away from Moscow and return to the European community of nations, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.

Civil Society
Conflict

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

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

UkraineAlert

Feb 21, 2017

The KGB and Me

By Jeffrey Gedmin

We overlapped, Vladimir Putin and me. Putin arrived in Dresden in August 1985 as a 32-year-old KGB major. He was working undercover as a consular officer, recruiting academics, journalists, and business people to spy for the Soviet Union in the West. I was in Dresden and throughout communist East Germany often in those days; I […]

Germany
Russia

UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Heavens Are Home to More than One Hundred

By Robert McConnell

In the fall of 2013, students took to the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv in protest. Their complaint was with then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who had reneged on his pledge to sign the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine and was instead negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Euromaidan was underway. Additional protesters streamed into the […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Nuclear Fallout of a Possible Trump-Putin Détente

By Mariana Budjeryn and Andreas Umland

So far, US President Donald Trump’s Russia policy remains a mystery. Does he want to set in motion a US-Russia rapprochement? If so, sanctions against Russia may be increasingly difficult to sustain. The Trump administration might judge Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity to be a bothersome yet insufficient impediment to mending fences with Putin and, […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 17, 2017

Who’s Up and Who’s Down in Eastern Ukraine?

By Oleksandr Nykonorov and Volodymyr Yermolenko

The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) are self-proclaimed entities that emerged in spring 2014 in eastern Ukraine thanks to massive Russian support. Ukraine’s attempts to retake them in spring and summer 2014 were stopped by a full-scale Russian military offensive that August. This more or less fixed the demarcation line between […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Multiculturalism Is the Answer to Ukraine’s Identity Crisis

By Peter Dickinson

Celebrating diversity: that’s the official theme of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Kyiv this May. This is an inspired choice; Ukraine has been one of Europe’s most diverse and multicultural lands for centuries. Since the Soviet collapse, this organic multiculturalism has played a disappointingly minor role in Ukraine’s nation-building efforts. […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Arm Ukraine Now

By Alexander J. Motyl

The case against providing lethal weapons to Ukraine has rested on a simple argument: If the United States provides arms to Kyiv, Moscow will escalate the war in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin would up the ante with even more arms or intensify its military pressure on Ukraine. According to this logic, since escalation benefits no […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 9, 2017

What’s Behind the Flare-Up in Eastern Ukraine?

By Volodymyr Yermolenko and Tetyana Ogarkova

On January 29, the fighting in Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine within Ukrainian government-controlled territory, seriously escalated. The fighting began close to the demarcation line and six kilometers north of Donetsk (see map), and continued until at least February 3. According to official reports, thirteen Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 93 were wounded since […]

Russia
Ukraine
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