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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

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

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

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

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

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

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

Feb 8, 2024

Removal of Ukraine’s ‘Iron General’ is one of Zelenskyy’s biggest gambles

By
Peter Dickinson

President Zelenskyy’s decision to remove Ukraine’s top general comes as no surprise but is nevertheless one of his biggest gambles of the entire war, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Policy


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2024

President Zelenskyy’s dual citizenship proposal presents wartime dilemmas

By
Mark Temnycky

President Zelenskyy’s recent proposal to allow dual citizenship is a potentially popular but impractical measure in the current wartime conditions, writes Mark Temnycky.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 6, 2024

Ukraine opens new front with drone strikes on Russia’s energy sector

By
Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine is seeking to bring the war home to Russia in 2024 with a new long-range drone strike campaign against Putin’s oil and gas industry, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict
Drones


UkraineAlert

Feb 6, 2024

Russia’s Bashkortostan protests: Separatism isn’t the real threat facing Putin

By
Dylan Myles-Primakoff, Lillian Posner

The main risk to the Putin regime is unity and solidarity across regions between Russians protesting shared forms of mistreatment at the hands of the state, write Dylan Myles-Primakoff and Lillian Posner.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 1, 2024

Wartime Ukraine ranks among world’s top performers in anti-corruption index

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s partners are right to expect maximum accountability, but there are currently no grounds for abandoning the country based on claims of corruption that are both exaggerated and outdated, writes Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 1, 2024

Zelenskyy gives Putin a long overdue history lesson

By
Taras Kuzio

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s weaponization of bad history has helped fuel the bloodiest European conflict since World War II, writes Taras Kuzio.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Feb 1, 2024

Europe United: EU leaders agree on long-term support package for Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

The European Union confirmed a landmark $54 billion aid package for Ukraine on February 1 in Brussels, after EU leaders were able to overcome opposition from Hungary.

Conflict
European Union


UkraineAlert

Jan 30, 2024

Big Tech must listen to the concerns of Russia’s pro-democracy voices

By
Joanna Nowakowska, Anna Kuznetsova, Marta Bilska

Big Tech companies offer a variety of opportunities for free expression in Putin’s Russia, write Joanna Nowakowska, Anna Kuznetsova, and Marta Bilska.

Civil Society
Conflict


UkraineAlert

Jan 25, 2024

Putin’s Achilles Heel: Ukraine targets Russia’s vital but vulnerable energy industry

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukraine has begun 2024 by opening a new front in the war against Putin’s Russia with a series of long-range drone strikes on Russia’s vital but vulnerable energy industry, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Technologies


UkraineAlert

Jan 25, 2024

Putin accused of fast-tracking Russian citizenship for abducted Ukrainian kids

By
Vladyslav Havrylov

Ukrainian officials have condemned a new decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in early 2024 simplifying the process of conferring Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children abducted from wartime Ukraine.

Civil Society
Conflict

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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

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

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

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

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

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

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

Nov 16, 2015

Slowly But Surely Kyiv Comes Around

By Alexander Motyl

How has Ukraine changed since the Euromaidan Revolution? In attempting to answer this question, I’ve used the governance-related categories in Freedom House’s Nations in Transit study, which tracks the reform record of post-Communist countries in Europe and Eurasia, and supplemented them with a few of my own. (Full disclosure: I’ve been involved in the Nations […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 11, 2015

Will Saakashvili’s Defeat in Odesa Be His Ukrainian Waterloo?

By Brian Mefford

Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov trounced Solidarity Party’s Sasha Borovik by 53-26 percent in Ukraine’s local elections October 25. Observers reported carousel voting, multiple voting lists, exit poll workers agitating for candidates, and a suspiciously slow vote count. The race for Odesa mayor was a proxy war between Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili and oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 11, 2015

A Close (and Surprisingly Positive) Encounter with Odesa’s New Police

By Vladislav Davidzon

The reorganization and reform of Ukraine’s catastrophically corrupt police force was the top priority when President Petro Poroshenko appointed Eka Zguladze first deputy Interior Minister of Ukraine. Poroshenko wants to emulate the relative success that Georgia’s Rose Revolution reformers garnered in modernizing their small post-Soviet country. Zguladze is just one of the many Georgians who […]

The Caucasus
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 11, 2015

Failing on the Ukrainian Battlefield, Russia Turns to Terrorism

By Aaron Korewa

To understand how Russia conducts its foreign policy, simply look at what the Kremlin accuses everyone else of doing. Unlike the Soviet Union, which operated under a coherent ideology, the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin seems to believe that everybody is a cynical power player, and that the West is simply hypocritical about it. […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 10, 2015

Judiciary Reforms Take a Major Step Forward in Ukraine

By Joshua Solomon

As conflict flares up on Ukraine’s eastern front, a different campaign rages in the conference rooms of Kyiv. The administration of President Petro Poroshenko is overhauling the Ukrainian state, amending everything from the constitution to the tax code. The most important reform may be the creation of an independent judiciary. As Anders Åslund pointed out this […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 10, 2015

Expert Panel Identifies Ways to Defeat Corruption in Ukraine

By Larry Luxner

A top Citibank executive and one of Ukraine’s most popular rock stars were among five luminaries who offered their suggestions Monday for cleaning up the endemic corruption that has long strangled the Ukrainian economy and kept foreign investors away. The five appeared on a November 9 panel titled “Securing Ukraine’s Future: Winning the Fight Against […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 9, 2015

Ukraine Needs Responsible Public Finances Now

By Anders Åslund

With increasing surprise, I follow the Ukrainian discussion about public finances. Strangely, some prominent Ukrainians seem to think that taxes and public expenditures have no relationship to one another, arguing that public expenditures should be increased and taxes should be cut. But that is called populism, the disease Ukraine has suffered from since its independence […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 9, 2015

Justice Sector Is Central Battlefield in Struggle Between Old Ukraine and New Ukraine

By Geoffrey R. Pyatt

Editor’s note: US Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt gave remarks at the “Conference on Legal and Governance Reform,” sponsored by the US-Ukraine Business Council and Kyiv School of Economics on October 30, 2015 in Kyiv. Pyatt’s remarks have been shortened below. The full version is available here. What a difference a year makes. When we gathered […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 9, 2015

Putin’s Victories in Syria

By Stephen Blank

To the great British military analyst Basil Liddell-Hart, it was axiomatic that the purpose of war was a better peace. In other words, for military operations to be successful, they must be correlated with political outcomes and strategic gains. Unfortunately, the idea that the United States can successfully employ military power to achieve clear political […]

Russia
Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Nov 4, 2015

New Film Captures Ukraine’s 91-Day Fight for Freedom

By Diane Francis

History is mostly curated and told years or even centuries later by persons not directly involved. But the twentieth century video camera brought us history on the run, produced by journalists, and now the cell phone records events and stories told by the participants themselves in real time. The finest example of this New History […]

Ukraine
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