UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture. UkraineAlert sources analysis and commentary from a wide-array of thought-leaders, politicians, experts, and activists from Ukraine and the global community. UkraineAlert has become a major publication in Ukraine’s news landscape and has established itself not only through its quality of content but also significant partnerships with English, Ukrainian, and Russian-language media through the country.

Stay Updated

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

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

UkraineAlert
May 12, 2026

Ukrainian long-range drones are turning Russia’s size into a weakness

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukraine is waging a strategic bombing campaign of deep strikes across the Russian Federation that aims to exploit Russia’s colossal size and transform it from a key strength into a fatal weakness, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Technologies

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

UkraineAlert
May 1, 2026

Europe needs Ukraine as it looks to counter growing Russian threat

By
Zahar Hryniv

More than a year since Trump returned to the White House, it is clear that Europe needs to develop its own strategic vision for the continent’s defense. It is equally apparent that Ukraine must be central to this vision, writes Zahar Hryniv.

Conflict
Defense Industry

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

UkraineAlert
Apr 30, 2026

Zelenskyy refuses Russian demands to surrender Ukraine’s vital fortress belt

By
Marc Goedemans

Ukraine rejects Russian demands to withdraw from northern Donetsk province as part of a peace deal and insists the region’s fortress belt is absolutely indispensable for the defense of the country as a whole, writes Marc Goedemans.

Conflict
Defense Policy

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Jul 4, 2026

Putin may gamble on mobilization to rescue Russia’s Ukraine invasion

By
Mykola Bielieskov

With the tide turning in Ukraine's favor on the battlefield and Russian manpower problems mounting, Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin may soon be forced to gamble on a politically risky mass mobilization in order to rescue his invasion, writes Mykola Bielieskov.


Conflict

Defense Policy


UkraineAlert

Jul 4, 2026

Ukraine is showing NATO the future of warfare

By
Myroslava Gongadze

Over five years, Ukraine has done more than expose Russia's weaknesses. It has revealed the future of warfare. NATO leaders must now demonstrate at the Ankara Summit that they are ready for the new security environment, writes Myroslava Gongadze.


Conflict

Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Jul 2, 2026

The West can learn from Ukraine’s success against Russian propaganda

By
Ryan Prior

While Ukraine often garners headlines for its drone warfare innovation, the country is also producing a playbook for countering Russian propaganda. This Ukrainian experience offers important lessons for the wider Western world, writes Ryan Prior.


Conflict

Defense Policy


UkraineAlert

Jun 30, 2026

Ukraine’s blockade of Crimea puts Putin’s greatest victory under threat

By
Peter Dickinson

Crimea has long been seen as Vladimir Putin’s greatest victory, but Ukraine's drone blockade is now turning the Russian-occupied peninsula into an embarrassing symbol of imperial overreach, writes Peter Dickinson.


Conflict

Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Jun 30, 2026

Banning Russian soldiers from the EU is a common sense security measure

By
Elena Davlikanova, Tatiana Vorozhko

Supporters of the current proposal to ban Russian military personnel from the EU see it as a common sense security measure in response to the Kremlin's escalating hybrid war against Europe, write Elena Davlikanova and Tatiana Vorozhko.


Conflict

Cybersecurity


UkraineAlert

Jun 25, 2026

Belarus is quietly preparing to play a larger role in Russia’s Ukraine war

By
Hanna Liubakova

Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka is not enthusiastic about the prospect of joining Russia’s Ukraine invasion, but he appears to be steadily building up his country’s military capacity in case he finds himself pushed more directly into the war, writes Hanna Liubakova.


Belarus

Conflict


UkraineAlert

Jun 25, 2026

The West can learn from Ukraine’s AI future vision beyond the battlefield

By
Andrew D’Anieri

The US and Europe are already looking to Ukraine for the next generation of defense technologies. As Western countries debate their own AI strategies, they would likewise do well to examine Ukraine as a similar starting point for further innovation, writes Andrew D’Anieri.


Artificial Intelligence

Conflict


UkraineAlert

Jun 23, 2026

Putin vowed to demilitarize Ukraine. Instead, he created a major military power.

By
Peter Dickinson

When Putin launched the full-scale invasion in 2022, he identified the “demilitarization” of Ukraine as one his two primary war aims. It is now clear that he has failed in the most spectacular fashion imaginable, writes Peter Dickinson.


Conflict

Defense Policy


UkraineAlert

Jun 23, 2026

Ukraine tightens drone blockade of Russian-occupied Crimea

By
Maksym Beznosiuk, William Dixon

Ukraine is currently conducting a mid-range drone strike campaign aiming to cut access to Russian-occupied Crimea and place the Black Sea peninsula under a logistics lockdown, write Maksym Beznosiuk and William Dixon.


Conflict

Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Jun 23, 2026

Russia intensifies shadow war to undermine support for Ukraine

By
Zahar Hryniv

Russia is waging an escalating shadow war against the West as the Kremlin attempts to intimidate Europe and deter further support for Ukraine, writes Zahar Hryniv.


Conflict

Cybersecurity

Load More

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

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

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

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

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

Ukraine Is Sliding Back, Sergii Leshchenko Warns

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.

Learn more

Follow us on social media
and support our work

support our work

Content

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

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
Load More