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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

Mar 25, 2018

Exclusive: New Owner of Kyiv Post Promises Editorial Independence

By
Diane Francis

On March 21, the hearts of reformers and journalists sank when Mohammad Zahoor sold the crusading Kyiv Post to Odesa businessman Adnan Kivan. Many were convinced that the new owner would soften the editorial line of Ukraine’s top English language newspaper. But in an interview March 25, Kivan said he bought the newspaper because of […]


Russia


Syria


UkraineAlert

Mar 23, 2018

Ukraine Is Serious about Privatization This Time

By
Oksana Bedratenko

Since 2014, privatization in Ukraine has made little progress. Well-connected oligarchs could no longer dominate the privatization process, as had often been the case in the past because of strengthened public scrutiny and involvement of international donors, yet vested interests were still powerful enough to block privatizations and the lingering problems associated with the country’s […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Mar 21, 2018

Crucial EU Initiative that Outs Kremlin Lies Under Fire

By
Halya Coynash

A crucial program that identifies Kremlin methods of disinformation has come under attack. Alarmingly, one of the key accusations is that its activities constitute an attempt to restrict freedom of speech. The situation could not be more absurd.  The program running into such controversy is the East Stratcom Task Force and the EU vs Disinfo […]


European Union


International Organizations


UkraineAlert

Mar 21, 2018

How the US Can Shore Up Ukraine’s Vulnerabilities in the Black Sea

By
Stephen Blank

Four years after the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine continues unabated. For all the failures of the government in Kyiv to reform, Ukraine is still fighting our war. Were it not for Ukrainians’ willingness to defend themselves, NATO would be spending a fortune to reform its past structures and procedures […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Mar 20, 2018

Why Nord Stream 2 Isn’t Just an Ordinary Pipeline

By
Diane Francis

Of all nations, Germany must heed the lessons of history, both current and past. This begs the question as to why Germany would help Europe become more energy dependent on a country like Russia that ignores norms, contracts, laws, treaties, and borders. And yet that is exactly what Germany is about to do if it […]


Germany


Russia


UkraineAlert

Mar 19, 2018

Ukraine should remove “stringent” disclosure law on civil society

By
Gina S. Lentine

There has been an ominous change in the state of freedom of association in Ukraine over the last year. One of Ukraine’s leading activists, Vitaliy Shabunin of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), is facing trial on criminal charges and could receive up to five years in prison. The charges are at best exaggerated and at […]


Corruption


Rule of Law


UkraineAlert

Mar 15, 2018

Sorry, Putin. Crimea still isn’t yours

By
Alexander Vershbow

We must make clear to Moscow that any return to “business as usual” in the West’s relations with Moscow cannot begin without the return of the Donbas, and that no improvement in relations can be complete without the return of Crimea.


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Mar 15, 2018

One Overlooked and Easy Way the Trump Administration Can Help Ukraine

By
Anders Åslund

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Ukraine are eminent. As former US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer writes in his new book, The Eagle and the Trident, they have almost always been good. Ukraine’s outstanding sacrifice was to give up the third largest nuclear force in the world. An unfortunate consequence was that Russia […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Mar 13, 2018

From Crimea to Salisbury: Time to Acknowledge Putin’s Global Hybrid War

By
Peter Dickinson

Since Russian troops began seizing government buildings in Crimea four years ago, the international community has become accustomed to encountering new acts of Russian aggression on an almost daily basis. Whether it is masked men in eastern Ukraine, a chemical weapons attack in the English countryside, or an attempted coup in the Balkans, the process […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Mar 13, 2018

Q&A: Tillerson Out, Pompeo In. What Does It Mean for Russia and Ukraine?

By
Melinda Haring

On March 13, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was sacked. US President Donald Trump plans to replace him with former CIA director Mike Pompeo. UkraineAlert asked its experts the following: What does Pompeo think about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aggressive foreign policy? What does the leadership change mean for US policy toward Ukraine […]


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.

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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UkraineAlert

May 10, 2017

Q&A: Will We Ever Get to the Bottom of Russian Hacking in the US Election?

By Melinda Haring

President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey on May 9. Comey had been leading a criminal investigation into whether Trump’s advisers colluded with the Russian government to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election. Trump justified the firing by pointing to the way Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, […]

Russia

UkraineAlert

May 10, 2017

Ukraine Needs Tough Love and IMF Conditionality, Leshchenko Urges

By Diane Francis

“The IMF should not give one more dollar to Ukraine until the Anti-Corruption Court is in operation,” said Sergii Leshchenko in a May 9 telephone interview. Leshchenko is a hero of the Revolution of Dignity, a lanky and serious journalist-turned-politician who has risked his life and career for years to fight corruption in Ukraine. He’s […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 10, 2017

Russia Deploys Banned Missile and Brags about It

By Semen Kabakaev

Thirty years ago, on December 8, 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which entered into force on June 1, 1988. The parties pledged not to produce, test or deploy ballistic and cruise land-based missiles of medium range (from 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers). Elimination of all declared missiles and […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 9, 2017

How to Win Friends and Influence People on a Global Scale

By Alexandra Hall Hall

Dale Carnegie’s famous self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, centers on investing in personal relationships in order to achieve success. President Donald Trump has demonstrated an instinctive understanding of this principle in the way he has interacted with a succession of world leaders, whether over a round of golf at Mar-a-Lago or […]

The Caucasus

UkraineAlert

May 8, 2017

How Trump Can Fix US-Russia Ties

By Alexander Vershbow

US President Donald Trump will have his first high-level meeting with a Russian representative this week, when Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov comes to the White House following a scheduled meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The stakes are high: about the only thing on which Moscow and Washington agree is that relations are at […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 5, 2017

How Not to Become a War Criminal: A Guide for Russian Soldiers

By Valentyn Badrak, Lada Roslycky, Mykhailo Samus, and Volodymyr Kopchak

Few Russian citizens view the Kremlin’s invasion into Ukraine as unlawful. Not many Russian servicemen realize that when they are fighting there, they fight as unnamed, faceless soldiers who lack the protection of international pacts, including the Geneva Conventions. They not only risk death, injury, or abandonment by the state that sent them there; they […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 4, 2017

Why Is the Kremlin So Fixated on Phantom Fascists?

By Peter Dickinson

In April, reports emerged of Kremlin plans to launch a major smear campaign against Russian opposition figurehead Alexey Navalny. Within days, an expensive-looking attack video had appeared anonymously on YouTube, comparing Navalny to Adolf Hitler. The Russian authorities denied any connection to the video, but few believed them. After all, branding opponents as fascists is […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 3, 2017

Will Ukrainians Ever Trust the Press?

By Adam Tismaneanu

Journalism has changed since the Euromaidan, but most Ukrainians still don’t trust the media. Oligarchs continue to own a majority of the major outlets. Since 2014, reformers have established a public broadcasting service and are in the process of privatizing several hundred state-owned newspapers. Those steps may not be enough. The media suffers from a […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 3, 2017

Mikheil Saakashvili: “By my own standards, I failed on every account in Odesa.”

By Diane Francis

Mikheil Saakashvili strode into the Toronto Four Seasons Hotel on a Saturday morning, all smiles and apologies for being late. The café was empty, except for myself, a handful of patrons, and a young waiter who had recently immigrated from Ukraine. I told him who I was waiting for and he smiled. Saakashvili is only […]

Russia The Caucasus

UkraineAlert

May 2, 2017

Does RT Really Believe in Free Speech? Prove It

By Jeffrey Gedmin

RT aims to discredit the United States in a straightforward way. The Kremlin-funded television network—established in 2005, operating in English, Arabic, and Spanish—doesn’t report on America and the West warts and all, but rather focuses single-mindedly on warts alone. That’s not all. Sins of omission, falsehoods, and conspiracy theories—like Ukraine shooting down the Malaysian Airlines […]

France Russia