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

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

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

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

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

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

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

Feb 21, 2017

The KGB and Me

By
Jeffrey Gedmin

We overlapped, Vladimir Putin and me. Putin arrived in Dresden in August 1985 as a 32-year-old KGB major. He was working undercover as a consular officer, recruiting academics, journalists, and business people to spy for the Soviet Union in the West. I was in Dresden and throughout communist East Germany often in those days; I […]


Germany

Russia


UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Heavens Are Home to More than One Hundred

By
Robert McConnell

In the fall of 2013, students took to the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv in protest. Their complaint was with then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who had reneged on his pledge to sign the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine and was instead negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Euromaidan was underway. Additional protesters streamed into the […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Nuclear Fallout of a Possible Trump-Putin Détente

By
Mariana Budjeryn and Andreas Umland

So far, US President Donald Trump’s Russia policy remains a mystery. Does he want to set in motion a US-Russia rapprochement? If so, sanctions against Russia may be increasingly difficult to sustain. The Trump administration might judge Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity to be a bothersome yet insufficient impediment to mending fences with Putin and, […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 17, 2017

Who’s Up and Who’s Down in Eastern Ukraine?

By
Oleksandr Nykonorov and Volodymyr Yermolenko

The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) are self-proclaimed entities that emerged in spring 2014 in eastern Ukraine thanks to massive Russian support. Ukraine’s attempts to retake them in spring and summer 2014 were stopped by a full-scale Russian military offensive that August. This more or less fixed the demarcation line between […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Multiculturalism Is the Answer to Ukraine’s Identity Crisis

By
Peter Dickinson

Celebrating diversity: that’s the official theme of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Kyiv this May. This is an inspired choice; Ukraine has been one of Europe’s most diverse and multicultural lands for centuries. Since the Soviet collapse, this organic multiculturalism has played a disappointingly minor role in Ukraine’s nation-building efforts. […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Arm Ukraine Now

By
Alexander J. Motyl

The case against providing lethal weapons to Ukraine has rested on a simple argument: If the United States provides arms to Kyiv, Moscow will escalate the war in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin would up the ante with even more arms or intensify its military pressure on Ukraine. According to this logic, since escalation benefits no […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 9, 2017

What’s Behind the Flare-Up in Eastern Ukraine?

By
Volodymyr Yermolenko and Tetyana Ogarkova

On January 29, the fighting in Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine within Ukrainian government-controlled territory, seriously escalated. The fighting began close to the demarcation line and six kilometers north of Donetsk (see map), and continued until at least February 3. According to official reports, thirteen Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 93 were wounded since […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2017

Six Outrageous Lies Russian Disinformation Peddled about Europe in 2016

By
Jakub Janda and Ilyas Sharibzhanov

Russian disinformation is working overtime to undermine European democracies. Much of the disinformation in 2016 came from original Russian sources that presented poorly digested information designed to provoke and to push an agenda that the Kremlin finds favorable. It aims to disconnect ordinary European citizens from supranational EU institutions and national politicians. With key elections in […]


Germany

Northern Europe


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2017

Women Held Up Half the Sky to Defend Ukraine

By
Diane Francis

In China, women are poetically referred to as “half the sky.” During the most dangerous hours of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, when tanks and water cannons and snipers were trained on protesters, roughly half of the Ukrainian activists were females of all ages. Now, the new film “Women of Maidan” beautifully portrays the critical role […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2017

Ukraine’s Next Big Gas Deadline Is Two Years Away: Will It Be Ready?

By
Oksana Bedratenko

The European gas market has become more integrated and more competitive since the 2009 gas crisis when Russia turned off the tap for nearly a week and Europe practically froze. Europe has increased the resilience of its gas system by building interconnections between pipelines, expanding its storage network, and diversifying gas supplies by creating infrastructure […]


Russia

Ukraine

Load More

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

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

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

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

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

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

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.

Learn more

Follow us on social media
and support our work

support our work

Content

UkraineAlert

Aug 28, 2015

Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work

By Ashish Kumar Sen

The United States must expand the scope of its sanctions well beyond Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle if this effort—a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine—is to have any real impact, says a Russian lawmaker. “The [US] government machine is doing what it can do, but […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 27, 2015

To Prevent Global Catastrophe, Putin Must Go

By Leonid Gozman

The minority of Russians who have not been zombified by official propaganda and who still have any clue about what is really going on in the world—rather than just on television—already know Russia is hurtling toward full-blown catastrophe, though the details might be up for debate. Will the collapse come next month, or more like […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 27, 2015

Things Are Looking Up for Ukraine: Debt Deal Reached

By Anders Åslund

Today Ukraine received great news. Private owners of $19 billion of Ukraine’s Eurobonds have agreed to a substantial debt restructuring that will give Ukraine much-needed relief. The high bond yields have been sharply reduced, the bonds’ maturities have been prolonged, and the face value of the bonds has been reduced by 20 percent. According to […]

Eastern Europe Russia

UkraineAlert

Aug 25, 2015

How the West Can Stop Russia’s Escalating War in Ukraine

By Maksym Khylko

This month, Russia stepped up military pressure on Ukraine, concentrating about fifty thousand troops along its border with Ukraine, using its proxy militias to shell Ukrainian government positions in the Donbas, and threatening Kyiv with “a big war.” The current escalation indicates Russian discontent with Ukraine’s refusal to make unilateral concessions such as allowing the […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 20, 2015

Russia, Not Ukraine, is the Questionable Partner

By Melinda Haring

In its August 12 editorial, “Shaky Ukraine: Economics and Corruption Complicate Its War,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls Ukraine a “questionable partner” because of “resistance to economic reform and use of Islamist Chechen forces.” Too bad neither charge is true.

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 19, 2015

The Soviet Playbook in Ukraine

By Aaron Korwea

It appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine. Gone are the talks about seizing so-called Novorossiya—the strip of land from Kharkiv to Odesa—and establishing a land bridge to occupied Crimea. Even though recent developments suggest a possible offensive to expand the territory Russia and its proxies now hold, perhaps with […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 17, 2015

“We want Ukraine to be a European country, not a Putin country,” Says Ukrainian MP

By Diane M. Francis

World attention focuses on ISIS and Iran, with its half an atomic weapon. But the biggest geopolitical issue is Vladimir Putin, backed by thousands of nuclear weapons, who is gradually conquering Ukraine, a democracy with 45 million people the size of Germany and Poland combined. In just over a year, Russia has seized 9 percent […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 17, 2015

Ukraine’s Fall Elections Matter More Than You Think

By Brian Mefford

With less than 80 days before election day in Ukraine, mayoral races are already heating up. Parliament approved a new election law that does two things: Ukraine will use an open-list system and the country will hold runoffs for mayors in larger cities. These two features combined with the potential decentralization reforms being debated by […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 17, 2015

Ukraine Must Finish Reforming Public Procurement Practices as Part of Anti-Corruption Drive

By Josh Cohen

As Ukraine struggles with a collapsing economy and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas, a third crisis threatens its long-term national stability: endemic corruption. Ukraine ranks 142nd out of 175 countries on Transparency International’s latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index. Of the fifteen former Soviet republics, only Tajikistan and Uzbekistan score lower. Official graft is widespread, but […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 13, 2015

Russia’s Occupation of Ukraine Still Top Threat to Global Security

By Stephen Blank

Recent articles in the US media suggest that the Pentagon is “rebalancing” its forces towards Europe to meet the Russian challenge. At the same time, NATO plans to halve the number of air patrols over the Baltic. Supposedly the Russian threat to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania has ebbed, and governments are finally stepping up to […]

NATO Russia
Load More