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.

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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

Retribution in the New Crimea

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

Retribution in the New Crimea

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

Retribution in the New Crimea

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

May 8, 2019

Reality check

By
Bohdan Nahaylo

Ukraine’s presidential election was a veritable political earthquake. The fault line between the old and the new, the real and the illusory, and pseudo-nationalism and grassroots patriotism, has been dramatically exposed. The old political establishment was shaken to its very foundations, and the strong tremors and shockwaves continue to be felt. The shifting political tectonic […]


Elections

Nationalism


UkraineAlert

May 6, 2019

Why we can’t get enough of Ukraine

By
Francis Fukuyama

The impact one can have on building institutions like the modern state, the rule of law, and democracy is limited. The area where it’s easiest is the third category, building democracy. The first two, building the modern state and building a real rule of law, are much harder, and those are the areas that have been […]


Corruption

Democratic Transitions


UkraineAlert

May 6, 2019

The illusions of Putin’s Russia

By
Anders Åslund

The best defense of the West against Putin’s authoritarian and kleptocratic regime is transparency, shining light on this anonymous wealth.


Corruption

Financial Regulation


UkraineAlert

May 3, 2019

Children as a tool: how Russia militarizes kids in the Donbas and Crimea

By
Iryna Matviyishyn

With an eye to the future, officials in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are waging a campaign of “patriotic education” aimed at reaching the hearts and minds of those most susceptible to ideological persuasion: children. Russia has always used the militarization of public life to indoctrinate local populations and continues that practice today. Currently, thousands […]


Conflict

Human Rights


UkraineAlert

May 2, 2019

Time for Ukraine to compete with Russia

By
Grigory Frolov

Showman Volodymyr Zelenskiy will soon be sworn in as president of Ukraine. Last month he crushed incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a remarkable landslide. Zelenskiy’s victory was noteworthy in Ukraine, but it’s also making headlines across the former Soviet Union. While Zelenskiy is inexperienced and his policies aren’t well defined, he knows how to engage […]


European Union

Inclusive Growth


UkraineAlert

May 2, 2019

Ukraine’s new language law rights historic wrongs

By
Andrej Lushnycky

For centuries the Ukrainian language was relegated to the status of a “peasant language” by the foreign rulers of the lands that make up the country today and by foreign scholars in Europe and abroad who perpetuated this Russian imperial falsehood. More recently, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a Soviet political […]


Civil Society

Nationalism


UkraineAlert

Apr 29, 2019

Vladimir Putin does Shakespeare

By
Stephen Blank

Vladimir Putin’s newest display of talent is his excelling in theatrics. He recently elected to play Macbeth or Richard III. Having nothing left to offer Russia as the indices of immiseration pile up, Putin’s recourse to imperial theatrics has dramatically accelerated. But ultimately this performance, like those of his predecessors on stage and in reality, […]


Conflict

Human Rights


UkraineAlert

Apr 26, 2019

What is wrong with the Ukrainian economy?

By
Anders Åslund

Construction is booming in Kyiv, Ukraine, but not the rest of the economy. A major reason is that Ukrainians with some extra savings do not put their money into banks but buy additional apartments instead. Others keep their savings in cash. On average, Ukrainian MPs keep $700,000 at home. Those who have a lot of […]


Financial Regulation

Fiscal and Structural Reform


UkraineAlert

Apr 25, 2019

10 ways the west should engage with Ukraine after 2019 elections

By
Chatham House

Five years after the annexation of Crimea and the instigation of conflict in the Donbas, the reasons for continued sanctions on Russia have not gone away. Crimea is still occupied. War grinds on in the Donbas. Ukraine held presidential elections this spring and will hold parliamentary elections in the fall. Whatever the results, events in […]


Defense Policy

Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Apr 25, 2019

What Zelenskiy’s victory means for Ukraine

By
David J. Kramer

The temptation in Kyiv and elsewhere is to look past Sunday’s overwhelming victory by upstart Volodymyr Zelenskiy over incumbent Petro Poroshenko and try to divine what it means for Ukraine. This piece will yield to that temptation—but after acknowledging the importance of what happened Sunday and throughout the election campaign. Free and fair elections in […]


Democratic Transitions

Elections

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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

Retribution in the New Crimea

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

Retribution in the New Crimea

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

Retribution in the New Crimea

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

Aug 3, 2015

Retribution in the New Crimea

By Melinda Haring

In March 2015, the Atlantic Council and Freedom House published a report by Crimean journalist Andrii Klymenko showing how Russia’s occupation and annexation of Crimea has unleashed an ongoing chain of human rights violations across the peninsula. Five days after release of the report—Human Rights Abuses in Russian-Occupied Crimea—Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) charged Klymenko […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 3, 2015

How Oligarchs Have Ruined Ukraine’s Economy and How to Fix It

By Basil A. Kalymon and Oleh Havrylyshyn

Ukraine finds itself in an economic crisis of massive proportions. In the past twelve months, its GDP has contracted by over 7.5 percent, the national deficit exceeds 10 percent, its currency has lost more than 50 percent of its value, its banks are insolvent and the national debt-to-GDP ratio has ballooned to more than 100 […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 31, 2015

Russia Threatens Ukrainian Pilot Nadiya Savchenko with 25-Year Jail Term

By Irena Chalupa

Nadiya Savchenko, Ukraine’s most famous female military officer, has languished in a Moscow prison for more than a year since Moscow-backed separatists captured her in eastern Ukraine last June and smuggled across the border to Russia shackled, her head covered by a sack. Now her captors have moved her again—and again under the cover of […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 30, 2015

Euromaidan’s Shockwaves: An Exile in Ukraine Recalls Fleeing his Native Kyrgyzstan

By Matthew Kupfer

On a recent warm summer night, Ilya Lukash sat in a bar near Kyiv’s trendy Kontraktova Square, drinking a beer and chatting with his friends in Ukrainian, Russian, and English. In a red T-shirt emblazoned with patriotic Ukrainian slogans, he could easily have been any one of the countless young, educated, pro-democracy Ukrainians who in […]

Central Asia Russia

UkraineAlert

Jul 27, 2015

Here’s How the EU Can Get Putin’s Attention

By Andreas Umland

How would the West react to a major escalation of the war in eastern Ukraine? What would Brussels and Washington do if Russia continues to send troops there? Even though analysts often suggest arming Ukraine with defensive weapons, what people sometimes forget is that the West is still, by far, Russia’s largest trade and investment […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 27, 2015

Ukraine’s IDP Crisis Worsens as Local Attitudes Harden

By Kateryna Moroz and Olena Vynogradova

Ukraine officially has 1,381,953 internally displaced persons (IDPs), the country’s Ministry of Social Policy (MoSP) reported July 10. Overall, more than 2.3 million Ukrainians—including IDPs and those seeking refuge abroad—have been uprooted by conflict since March 2014. Yet the actual number of IDPs remains unknown and is likely to be higher, since the official figure […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 25, 2015

The Future of Ukraine’s Default

By Yuriy Gorodnichenko

On July 24, Ukraine paid a $120 million coupon to service its sovereign debt. In many ways, this event is a moment of truth: it signals that there is a prospect of reaching an agreement with Ukraine’s creditors. Earlier this year, Ukraine signed a major deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF agreed […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 24, 2015

Kremlin Stages Fake Separatist Stunt in Lviv

By Halya Coynash

Western leaders pressing Ukraine to give into Russian demands and offer the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics autonomy would be well-advised to take note of the other parts of Ukraine which, according to Russian media, are also demanding self-rule. On July 17, approximately twenty people in Lviv staged a blitzkrieg demonstration with banners demanding […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 24, 2015

The Enemy Within: Paramilitaries and the Ukrainian State

By Peter Sattler

Ukrainian paramilitaries pose an increasingly existential threat to Kyiv. Earlier this year, Kyiv launched an initiative to bring them under their direct control. But despite their nominal subordination to Kyiv’s security services, these groups operate with minimal supervision and maintain financial independence. Their fighting capacity breeds instability and violence. More recently, Right Sector is undermining […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 22, 2015

Reform Agenda in Kyiv on Slow Burn, But in Odesa, Saakashvili Already Delivers

By Kateryna Smagliy

“I come away from this visit to Odesa with a sense of optimism,” wrote US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt after his recent trip there. After I posted Pyatt’s article to my Facebook page in an attempt to diminish the growing fatigue of fellow Ukrainians over the mixed results of the new government’s reforms, angry reactions followed. […]

Russia The Caucasus
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