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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

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

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

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

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

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

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

Oct 3, 2023

Mixed messaging from Moldova on energy sector reforms

By
Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti

Recent steps by the Moldovan authorities cast doubt on Chisinau’s commitment to energy market liberalization, escaping Russian energy dominance, and anti-corruption imperatives, writes Suriya Jayanti.

Conflict
Corruption


UkraineAlert

Sep 30, 2023

Ukraine’s soccer stars help to keep Russia’s invasion in global spotlight

By
Renat Zihanshyn, Oleksandra Gaidai

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed soccer legend Andriy Shevchenko as an advisor on September 26 in recognition of the role played by Ukrainian footballers in keeping Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression in the global spotlight.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Sep 30, 2023

Can US Abrams tanks help Ukraine achieve a battlefield breakthrough?

By
Olivia Yanchik

The first US M1 Abrams tanks arrived in Ukraine in late September, writes Olivia Yanchik. Will these American tanks help Ukraine to achieve a breakthrough against Vladimir Putin’s deeply entrenched Russian invasion force?

Conflict
Defense Industry


UkraineAlert

Sep 27, 2023

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making real progress on the Crimean front

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s escalating attacks in Crimea are steadily undermining Russia’s invasion and are a reminder that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is not limited to the relatively static front lines of the war, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Policy


UkraineAlert

Sep 26, 2023

Ukraine’s drone army is bringing Putin’s invasion home to Russia

By
Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine’s increasingly formidable drone army is enabling Kyiv to bring Vladimir Putin’s invasion home to Russia and strike strategic targets throughout the Russian Federation, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict
Defense Industry


UkraineAlert

Sep 22, 2023

Russia resumes bombing campaign of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure

By
Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti

Following a six-month pause, Russia renewed its bombing campaign of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure on September 21, signalling that Ukrainians face another winter of blackouts as Putin tries to freeze the country into submission.

Conflict
Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Sep 21, 2023

Anti-corruption progress in Ukraine and Moldova is vital for EU integration

By
Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine and Moldova stand at a crossroads as both countries seek to strengthen their institutions to stamp out corruption and accelerate their integration with Europe, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Sep 20, 2023

Zelenskyy tells United Nations: Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine

By
Taras Kuzio

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the UN this week that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. Efforts to legally prove genocidal intent will likely focus on the genocidal rhetoric of Putin and other Russian leaders, writes Taras Kuzio.

Conflict
Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Sep 20, 2023

Ukraine’s wartime resilience portrayed on stage in Washington

By
Jacob Heilbrunn

Ukraine’s remarkably resilient response to Russia’s full-scale invasion has captured the world’s imagination and has now inspired a quirky stage adaptation by Kyiv-born playwright Sasha Denisova, writes Jacob Heilbrunn.

Conflict
Drones


UkraineAlert

Sep 19, 2023

What would it take to hold elections in Ukraine?

By
Peter Erben, Gio Kobakhidze

Calls for elections in Ukraine are premature and do not take into consideration the extremely unfavorable wartime conditions that make it virtually impossible to stage a free, fair, and safe vote, write Peter Erben and Gio Kobakhidze.

Conflict
Democratic Transitions

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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

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

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

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

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

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

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

Mar 13, 2017

The Trump-Putin Honeymoon Is Over, But the Marriage Was a Sham

By James Miller

Last year, while Americans were embroiled in one of the ugliest election cycles in recent memory, the Russian media was basking in the phenomenon of Donald Trump. The Kremlin was betting that a Trump presidency would be far more advantageous to its interests. Months before the election, Trump had established an agenda that was arguably […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 9, 2017

The Fight for Justice Is the Fight for Ukraine’s Future

By Taras Shevchenko

Attempts to implement judicial reform in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 have had no impact on the public’s level of trust in the judiciary; as of November 2016, four out of five Ukrainians did not trust the judicial branch. Foreign investors have a similar attitude; in a September 2016 poll, investors mentioned the judiciary as […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 8, 2017

Springtime for NATO in the North

By Aaron Korewa

After the Russian attack on Georgia in 2008, a joke gained some popularity in Finland. It went like this: Vladimir Putin lands at Helsinki airport and proceeds to passport control. “Name?” asks the border guard. “Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” answers the Russian president. “Occupation?” asks the border guard. “No, just visiting,” answers Putin. After the war […]

NATO
Northern Europe

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
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