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

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

UkraineAlert
Sep 3, 2026

Putin cannot defeat NATO but he could divide and discredit the alliance

By
Peter Dickinson

If Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to attack NATO, his goal will be to divide and discredit the alliance rather than actually defeating it, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Defense Policy

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

UkraineAlert
Aug 27, 2026

Ukrainians are not superheroes with endless powers of resilience

By
Lauren Van Metre, Elena Davlikanova

By celebrating Ukrainian resilience as an almost superhuman quality, the international community risks obscuring the much less glamorous reality that Ukrainians are actually ordinary people who have endured extraordinary violence for far too long, write Lauren Van Metre and Elena Davlikanova.

Civil Society
Conflict

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

UkraineAlert
Aug 25, 2026

A cultural renaissance is reshaping national identity in wartime Ukraine

By
Davis Richardson

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is fueling a defiant cultural outpouring that is redefining and strengthening Ukrainian national identity in ways that challenge centuries of Kremlin imperialism, writes Davis Richardson.

Civil Society
Conflict

Latest analysis

UkraineAlert

Jan 31, 2019

Ukraine Needs Carrots and Sticks to Fight Corruption

By
Oleksandr Danylyuk

There is no silver bullet when it comes to defeating systemic corruption in any country. Despite many opportunities, Ukraine has failed to achieve economic success due to its entrenched corruption which offsets the positive effects from many of the hard-earned and difficult reforms we have implemented since independence.


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 30, 2019

An Exemplary Life

By
Tatiana Vorozhko

On January 23, Ukrainian-Briton Nadia Diuk passed away. This was reported on Facebook by her sister, who wrote that Nadia had died at home after a long battle with cancer. The previous day, President Petro Poroshenko bestowed the Order of Princess Olga (III degree), one of Ukraine’s highest honors to Diuk, who had dedicated her […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 29, 2019

Time to Shame Putin Again

By
Maksym Eristavi

Chechnya is at it again. Recent reports indicate that there’s another anti-gay pogrom underway in the Russian region of Chechnya. It is said to include kidnappings, secret torture chambers, and arbitrary executions. Violence against these individuals is escalating, and it’s the biggest spike of targeted attacks against gay Chechens since 2017 when 100 LGBTQ people […]


Russia


UkraineAlert

Jan 29, 2019

Why the Hungarian Link in Russia’s Grand Strategy Is Overblown

By
Gergely Varga

Editor’s Note: This article is a response to Stephen Blank’s essay, Putin’s Energy Strategy Is More Ambitious than You Think, which we published on January 4, 2019.   Energy policy is a crucial part of Russia’s strategy to maximize its influence in Europe and divide the European Union. As highlighted by critics of Russia’s assertive energy […]


Hungary

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 28, 2019

Five Key Takeaways from Davos 2019 for Ukraine

By
Andy Hunder

“No other event has the same global appeal,” commented Andy Christie, private jets director at Air Charter Service, predicting up to 1,500 individual private jets flights to be made in and out of this year’s Davos summit. Top global business leaders, political leaders, economists, celebrities, and journalists turn up year after year to the World […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 25, 2019

Ukraine’s Slow but Steady Strangulation Is Taking Place in Plain Sight

By
Peter Dickinson

Russia’s war against Ukraine is about to enter its sixth year, but many remain in denial over the true nature of the conflict. There is still widespread international reluctance to acknowledge the global significance of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, leading to a preference for the kind of euphemistic language that blurs the lines between victim and […]


Germany

Russia


UkraineAlert

Jan 25, 2019

Here’s How to Nurture Risk-Taking Among Ukraine’s IT Sector

By
Maksym Bakhmatov

Ukraine is a country of opportunity and talent. Home to one of the fastest-growing IT industries in the world, Ukraine has over 4,000 technology companies and about 2,000 startups. In 2018, investment in startups reached almost $300 million. Additionally, the country has roughly 184,000 software developers, and Ukrainians register over 12,000 patents annually for various […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 24, 2019

Are Things Really Changing at Ukroboronprom?

By
Melinda Haring

Pavlo Bukin has been on the job for nearly a year, and he’s in good spirits. It’s not the most enviable position: he’s the general director of Ukroboronprom, the state-owned defense company, and has been charged with cleaning up the company and making its business practices market friendly. Ukroboronprom (UOP) has serious reputational issues. Ukraine’s […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 22, 2019

Who wanted Boris Nemtsov dead? New book offers new look at evidence

By
Anders Åslund

Boris Nemtsov was jollier and more outgoing than most. Unlike most of Russia’s reformers, he abstained from wealth, choosing to live modestly as an opposition politician. He could work with anyone. On February 27, 2015, he was murdered just off the Kremlin.


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jan 21, 2019

Ukraine emerges from isolation

By
James Brooke

Transportation links provide advance warnings as to where a society is going physically and mentally. Until five years ago, all of Ukraine’s roads led to Moscow. Now they go west. On land, more Ukrainians traveled by train to Europe than to Russia last year for the first time since Czarist railroads were built in the […]


Macroeconomics

Russia

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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

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

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

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

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

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

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

Feb 3, 2016

Only Presidential Leadership Can Avert Ukraine’s Perfect Storm

By Adrian Karatnycky

The February 3 resignation of Ukraine’s Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius is a signal that the country’s efforts to dramatically reduce corruption and rent-seeking are meeting with serious resistance. The resignation also exposes how Ukraine’s political system works. Just as in established democracies, technocrats and experts have to make common cause with politicians and ideologues. And […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 3, 2016

Russian Propaganda in Ukraine: Fighting Phantoms

By Roman Shutov

For Ukrainians, the war in eastern Ukraine has become an everyday reality. Only two years ago, though, no one in the country believed war was possible—and certainly no one expected that propaganda would be one of its main weapons. Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, little attention was paid to building a system that would ensure […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 2, 2016

Thanks But No Thanks, Mr. Inozemtsev: A Response from Kyiv

By Olga Bielkova

What is wrong with Vladislav Inozemtsev’s recent opinion piece on how to help Ukraine? The problem with his article is not his advice itself, as flawed as it is, but the logic on which it is built. He uses the logic of imperialism, of an authoritarian state, of conspiracy theorists for whom the world is […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 1, 2016

The Future of Mykolayiv, the Future of Ukraine

By Michael Druckman

In many ways, the problems facing the city of Mykolayiv since the October 2015 local elections are a microcosm of the challenges facing Ukraine’s national leaders. The new mayor, with a strong track record of engaging with civil society on anti-corruption efforts and a fresh face to city politics, faces huge obstacles from old faces […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Feb 1, 2016

Putin Gets It Wrong Again: Eurasian Economic Union Hurts Russia

By Anders Åslund

In June 2009, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly launched the idea of a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Soon it was named the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). In September 2013, Armenia agreed to join, and Kyrgyzstan joined in 2015. This is a Russian initiative, dominated by Russia in all regards. Its secretariat is located in Moscow. […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 27, 2016

In Ukraine, Putin Tries to Cash in Before Luck Runs Out

By Stephen Blank

Ukraine has become the object of high-stakes diplomacy. This does not mean that fighting has stopped—quite the opposite. Russian forces continue to launch probes and violate the cease-fire agreement; they have substantially reinforced themselves, as have the Ukrainian forces arrayed against them. Nevertheless, a major diplomatic campaign is occurring. Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken […]

European Union International Organizations

UkraineAlert

Jan 27, 2016

Making Sense of Minsk: Decentralization, Special Status, and Federalism

By Paul Niland

Decentralization, special status, and federalism. These terms are three different things, although they are often mistakenly substituted one for another, and some people think one term means another in Ukraine today. The decentralization debate is heating up again as Ukraine faces a legal deadline to pass a constitutional amendment that gives the so-called Donetsk People’s […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 26, 2016

Not So Fast, Mr. Inozemtsev

By John E. Herbst

Responding to an article that Ambassadors Steven Pifer, William Taylor, and I wrote in The New York Times advocating greater US and EU assistance to Ukraine, Vladislav Inozemtsev wrote a provocative article January 19 in which he makes the case that Kyiv should cede the occupied territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Luhansk People’s […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 25, 2016

Ukrainians Need to Stop Waiting for Their White Knight

By Sergii Leshchenko

My source leaned forward and said in a muffled voice: “The latest news is that grey cardinal Igor Kononenko’s men have been placed inside Ukrainian Railways, and Member of Parliament Sergei Fayermak of the People’s Front is now in charge of all the seaports.” This conversation with a government insider took place in the middle […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 25, 2016

Ukraine’s Economic Revival Starting in the West

By James Brooke

What do coastal China, northern Mexico, and western Ukraine have in common? After Beijing dropped Maoist economics in the 1970s, low-wage China began to thrive. The economic boom started with the coast, the area closest to the Pacific coast ports of Canada and the United States, with its access to a huge market. Low-wage northern […]

European Union International Organizations
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