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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.


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Latest analysis


UkraineAlert

Feb 19, 2019

How Ukraine’s Leading Comedian Pulled Ahead in Polls

By
Ruslan Minich

On February 7, hundreds of Facebook users in Ukraine posted videos with red nose filters. Everyone ended up looking like a clown, and that was precisely the point. Ukrainians are clowns because they’ve allowed the country’s political elites to rob them blind, keeping salaries and social benefits low. This was part of a flash mob […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 19, 2019

Ukraine Has Reached a Tipping Point

By
Oksana Markarova

Elections may be on the horizon, but I firmly believe that reforms will continue through 2020 and beyond. Now that Ukraine has enshrined EU and NATO accession as the fundamental direction of the country, whoever comes to power, Ukraine’s pro-western economic development and orientation cannot be reversed.


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 14, 2019

What the death of the INF Treaty means for Kyiv

By
Steven Pifer

With the United States and Russia no longer subject to the INF Treaty’s limits, it would be hard to argue that Ukraine and the other states should remain constrained by the agreement. If Kyiv chooses, it can invoke the same treaty right to withdraw that Washington exercised two weeks ago.


Arms Control


Nuclear Nonproliferation


UkraineAlert

Feb 14, 2019

What Putin Must Hear in Munich

By
Hanna Hopko

The international community is preparing for the annual Munich Security Conference, which will host more than 500 guests, including forty heads of state and government. I too will attend. Before the conference, I spent part of the week in Kramatorsk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, which underwent Russian occupation but was freed by the Ukrainian army. Four years ago, on February […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 13, 2019

When a Pencil Is a Rocket Launcher: How We Talk about War

By
Vitaliy Deynega

In Kyiv, the word karandash (pencil) is an ordinary word one might encounter in an office supply store or an elementary school. But in eastern Ukraine, where the conflict between Ukraine and Russia has killed more than 10,000, displaced another 1.7 million, and injured thousands of civilians, karandash means something else. The Ukrainian military uses […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 13, 2019

We Do Far More than Meddle in Foreign Elections, Top Putin Aide Taunts

By
Volodymyr Yermolenko

On February 11, Vladislav Surkov, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key aides and ideologists, published a reveling article called “Putin’s Long State.” It is not an ordinary piece; it makes the case for a new kind of Russian expansionism, and it should be read closely and taken seriously.


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 12, 2019

Sure, Ukraine’s Not Going to Elect a Pro-Russian President, but There Are Many Other Ways the Kremlin Can Interfere

By
Sofiya Kominko

Russia’s attack on Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov on November 25 may have been a probe to test the West’s reaction before the launch of other offensives aimed at destabilizing Ukraine at a crucial time. 2019 is Ukraine’s election year. And it is one of double importance with presidential and parliamentary elections taking place six […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 12, 2019

Ukrainian Comedian Tops Polls but Race Far from Over

By
Katie LaRoque

In a few weeks, a comedian may become the next president of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an unlikely candidate who plays an ordinary history teacher that becomes president of Ukraine on his popular TV series, Servant of the People, ranks as one of the most popular candidates in Ukraine’s March presidential election. Zelenskiy’s character, Vasyl Petrovych […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 11, 2019

New Political Platform in Ukraine Deserves Second Look

By
Vitalii Rybak

On February 4, a group of Ukrainian politicians and activists announced the formation of a new political platform. In Ukraine, this would hardly make news. New political platforms are announced regularly, especially during election years. But this new platform, the Euro-Atlantic Agenda for Ukraine, deserves a second look. (We previously reported that this platform was […]


NATO


Russia


UkraineAlert

Feb 11, 2019

Why the Sajdik Plan for the Donbas Will Not Work

By
Maksym Khylko

In the last year, there hasn’t been any new momentum in the effort to bring peace to Ukraine. Amid this long-lasting stalemate, the Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung recently published an interview with Martin Sajdik, special representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, under the ambitious title “We Have a New Plan […]


OSCE


Russia

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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

Mar 29, 2016

Shokin’s Revenge: Ukraine’s Odious Prosecutor General Fires Honest Deputy Before Parliament Sacks Him

By Anders Åslund

On March 29, the Ukrainian Rada finally approved the resignation of Ukraine’s disreputable Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. He was voted out with an overwhelming majority of 289 votes, including 114 of the 134 deputies of the Poroshenko Bloc. On February 16, Shokin was forced to submit his letter of resignation in connection with the failed […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 29, 2016

US Presidential Politics Play Poorly in Ukraine

By James Brooke

US President Barack Obama’s refusal to militarily defend Ukraine against Russian aggression has sent a chill halfway around the world to Odesa, the Black Sea port only 200 kilometers by warship from Crimea. In the April issue of The Atlantic, Obama says: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 29, 2016

Sick of the Ukraine Crisis? Then Arm Ukraine

By Alexander J. Motyl

Building Up Ukraine’s Military is the Counterintuitive Solution to Peace Western policymakers who believe the Minsk accords would work if only Ukraine made the requisite constitutional and electoral concessions are missing a key point: that they, and Russia, forced Ukraine to make security its priority by violating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Russia […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 23, 2016

Ukraine and Turkey’s Newly Strengthened Relationship

By Hannah Thoburn

Turkey and Ukraine, including Crimea, control 71 percent of the Black Sea coast between the two of them. With Ukraine to the north and Turkey directly to the south, the two nations have long been collegial when working together on regional problems, but their reasonably friendly relationship has generally been subordinated to more pressing issues. […]

Europe & Eurasia Russia

UkraineAlert

Mar 23, 2016

Separatists Launch New “Passportization” Strategy in Eastern Ukraine

By Agnia Grigas

On March 16, the separatist leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) began issuing their own passports in eastern Ukraine. The territory’s militant leader Aleksander Zakharchenko called the move “a very important step toward building statehood” that will serve to solidify and formalize the territory’s separatist status. Earlier, Moscow had planned to hand out […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 23, 2016

Memo to Secretary Kerry: Russia Is Weaker Than You Think

By Ariel Cohen

When US Secretary of State John Kerry goes to Moscow this week, he should keep in mind that Russia’s recent military engagements in Ukraine and Syria represent an attempt to manipulate perceptions. The Kremlin wants to position itself as a peer of America, open to cooperation against ISIS, but capable of military threats against US […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 22, 2016

Russian Court Finds Ukraine’s Defiant Pilot Savchenko Guilty

By Irena Chalupa

Nothing in the Nadiya Savchenko case has been easy or fast. The famed Ukrainian pilot whom Russia has charged with complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists can’t even get a quick verdict at the end of a trial that has lasted nine months. On March 22, the court found Savchenko guilty of all […]

Europe & Eurasia Russia

UkraineAlert

Mar 22, 2016

Don’t Mess With Kyiv’s Activists

By Josh Cohen

Ukrainians may soon be granted visa-free travel within the European Union, thanks to Kyiv’s watchful activists. But that status was in jeopardy after parliament weakened a key anti-corruption law on February 16. Visa-free travel was linked to a series of reforms, including a law that discloses the income of Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 22, 2016

Can Minsk Deliver a Sustainable Peace?

By Melinda Haring

Is the Minsk process salvageable? Twelve experts gathered at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, on March 17 to debate whether the Minsk ceasefire can deliver a sustainable peace in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has claimed over 10,000 lives and displaced more than 1.6 million people. The Minsk accords, signed in 2014 and 2015, […]

Europe & Eurasia Russia

UkraineAlert

Mar 18, 2016

Fighting Back: New Bill Aims to Counter Russian Disinformation

By Amanda Abrams

Russia’s attempts to win over hearts and minds in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and beyond are succeeding—in large part because of the United States’ disengagement in the information arena, say experts. In response, Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) introduced a bill on March 16 that would significantly beef up the United States’ counter-propaganda […]

Europe & Eurasia Russia