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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

Jun 6, 2017

Q&A: What Does Archbishop Huzar’s Example Mean for Ukraine?

Archbishop Lubomyr Huzar died on May 31 at 84. Born in Lviv on February 26, 1933, Huzar’s family fled to Austria in 1944 when Soviet forces seized Lviv. His family eventually moved to the United States, where he studied at a number of universities and then obtained his doctorate in Rome. He returned to Lviv […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jun 6, 2017

Ulana Suprun: Tough, Tenacious, and Transforming Ukraine’s Health Care

By
Melinda Haring

For nearly a year, Dr. Ulana Suprun has been pressing for a complete revamp of Ukraine’s health care system, and she is finally close to seeing it replaced by a brand-new set of policies. She’s got a firm deadline: the current parliamentary session ends on July 14. If she can’t get the bill passed in […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Jun 1, 2017

Ukraine Beats Russia in Epic Gas Battle

By
Anders Aslund

On May 31, Ukraine’s Naftogaz won an extraordinary victory over Russia’s Gazprom in the international arbitration court in Stockholm. This was the possibly biggest international arbitration verdict ever. Gazprom had claimed $47.1 billion from Naftogaz, half of Ukraine’s GDP, and Naftogaz $30.3 billion from Gazprom.   Naftogaz won on all three counts the court considered. […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

May 31, 2017

NATO’s Double Standards: Why Montenegro but Not Ukraine?

By
Taras Kuzio

On June 5, Montenegro will become the twenty-ninth member of NATO. This comes at a time when accession talks with the EU are also occurring; the EU has offered membership to Montenegro and other countries in the western Balkans. To any careful observer, it is obvious that the standards for Montenegro’s inclusion in the alliance […]


NATO


Russia


UkraineAlert

May 31, 2017

Will Ukraine’s New Supreme Court Be Any Different?

By
Mykhailo Zhernakov

Every successful reform needs the right legal framework, the right institutions, and the right people. Take NABU—Ukraine’s newly established National Anticorruption Bureau. This spring it managed to arrest the notorious head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov, and one of the country’s top political moguls Mykola Martynenko—a task no other law enforcement body would […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

May 31, 2017

How Putin Accidentally United Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukraine became an independent country in 1991, but it took the outbreak of war in 2014 to forge it into a fully-fledged nation. As is often the case with major historic shifts, this change was not immediately apparent at the time. Even now, three years on, it may come as news to the millions of […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

May 25, 2017

Ukrainians Discover Europe This Summer. Will Europe Discover Ukraine?

By
James Brooke

Ukraine is embarking on its summer of Europe. On June 11, summer starts with a boom. That’s when visa-free tourism begins for Ukrainians, allowing them to visit the twenty-six countries of Europe’s Schengen zone, including the four non-EU members. Only Britain and Ireland are excluded. To carry the tourists, discount airlines Wizz Air and Ryanair […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

May 25, 2017

It’s Counterintuitive, but Arming Ukraine Will Actually Save US Taxpayers Money

By
Stephen Blank

In April, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked, “Why should US taxpayers be interested in Ukraine?” Now, the United States does not always provide assistance or help defend other victims of aggression, so the answer must go beyond the simple observation that Ukraine is the victim of premeditated aggression. I see five reasons why. First, […]


Russia


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

May 24, 2017

The Obvious Mistake We Make in Fighting Russian Disinformation

By
Geysha Gonzalez

“The person who tells their story best, wins,” said Jed Willard of the FDR Center for Global Engagement at Harvard University in Prague on May 17, succinctly explaining the challenges of fighting disinformation. Willard and 330 other experts from twenty-nine countries gathered in Prague for a strategic communications summit (STRATCOM) hosted by European Values, a […]


Russia


UkraineAlert

May 24, 2017

Will Facebook Finally Fight Disinformation or Just Make Things Worse?

By
Nina Jankowicz

For years, Facebook has quietly and very intentionally inserted itself into the daily lives of its users. It has succeeded wildly, becoming arguably the world’s most ubiquitous communication platform, with an average of 1.28 billion daily users. But now that it has become one of the world’s most popular sources of news, Facebook is failing […]


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.

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UkraineAlert

Aug 12, 2015

How Mr. X Outsmarted Mr. Kvit: The Lopsided Progress of Ukraine’s Education Reforms

By Kateryna Smagliy

Let me tell you the story of Mr. X—a student whom I had never seen in class, and who had not shown up for any of his final exams. “Oh, do not worry,” his fellow students reassured me, “it has been like this year in year out.” I could have easily forgotten this trivial episode […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 12, 2015

Ukraine Crisis Is Not Only About Ukraine

By Andreas Umland

The Ukraine crisis is not only about Ukraine. Far more urgent for humanity as a whole are the commitments made by Russia and other UN Security Council members with regard to Ukraine’s accession to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) following the Soviet Union’s collapse. The NPT aims to curtail the spread of weapons […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 11, 2015

Even After Iran Deal, Putin Won’t Get His Way in Ukraine

By John E. Herbst

Ever since US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi last May, Ukraine’s friends have been concerned that in its eagerness to ensure Kremlin support for a deal with Iran, the White House was willing to let Putin have his way in Ukraine. Advocates of this outlook point to five […]

Iran Russia

UkraineAlert

Aug 10, 2015

Here’s Why I’m Hopeful About Eastern Ukraine

By Yuriy Didula

In July, residents of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk marked the first anniversary of liberation from the occupation of Russian-backed separatists. Both cities experienced their rule for nearly four months in 2014. In the last year, marches, concerts, and city lights with slogans promoting peace have helped reinforce a growing sense of national pride. And yet a […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 10, 2015

Why Eastern Ukraine Matters to Ramzan Kadyrov

By Ruben Gzirian

No Instagram account is more entertaining, more dumbfounding, and more terrifying than that of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. On any given day, one is guaranteed to see video clips ranging from Kadyrov praying before dawn in the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque to playing soccer at the FC Terek facilities (Kadyrov was the President of FC Terek […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 10, 2015

Making Ukraine the Breadbasket of Europe Again

By Oksana Khomei

Ukraine’s system of agricultural production is paternalistic, dating back to the Soviet era, when bureaucrats constantly intruded into the production process. Such a strategy may have suited the planned economy, but in Ukraine’s market economy it has only spawned widespread corruption, because authorities cannot inspect every farm and business in person. EU standards allow producers […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 5, 2015

Moscow’s Veto of MH17 Tribunal: A Blunder of Potentially Huge Proportions

By Ariel Cohen

On July 29, Russia vetoed a draft UN resolution seeking to set up a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for shooting down a Malaysia Airlines jumbo jet more than a year ago. By exercising its Security Council veto against the resolution, Moscow has lost control of the process, committing a possible error that may ultimately […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 4, 2015

Debunking Russia’s Narrative of Rampant Anti-Semitism in Ukraine Again

By Halya Coynash

The Congress of National Communities of Ukraine’s latest reports on xenophobia in Ukraine have struck another blow to Moscow’s persistent attempts to present the country as a hotbed of anti-Semitism. The reports make no mention of the “pogroms” alleged by the Russian Foreign Ministry, nor do they back Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion of a […]

Russia Ukraine

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