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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

Latest analysis


UkraineAlert

Apr 5, 2022

The whole world would benefit from a Ukrainian victory over Russia

By
Chris Alexander

From the countries of the former USSR to nations targeted by Vladimir Putin's destabilization campaigns and secret wars, the whole world would stand to gain from a Ukrainian victory over Russia.


Conflict


Democratic Transitions


UkraineAlert

Apr 3, 2022

The West must choose: Either arm Ukraine or enable Putin’s genocide

By
Peter Dickinson

Revelations of Russian war crimes outside Kyiv underscore the urgency of providing the Ukrainian military more weapons.


Conflict


Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Apr 2, 2022

Putin’s War: Ukraine can defeat Russia but urgently needs more weapons

By
Oleksandr Danylyuk

Western leaders must urgently rethink their cautious attitude towards arming Ukraine and provide the country with the offensive weapons it needs in order to defeat Putin on the battlefield, argues Oleksandr Danylyuk.


Conflict


European Union


UkraineAlert

Apr 1, 2022

Russian contempt for Ukraine paved the way for Putin’s disastrous invasion

By
Anders Åslund

The many miscalculations that paved the way for Vladimir Putin's disastrous invasion of Ukraine are rooted in longstanding Russian ignorance of Ukraine and contempt for all things Ukrainian, writes Anders Åslund.


Civil Society


Conflict


UkraineAlert

Mar 31, 2022

Ukrainian civil society can help hold Russia accountable for war crimes

By
Danielle Johnson

The quest for international justice over the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is already underway and should seek to involve Ukrainian civil society, argues Danielle Johnson.


Civil Society


Conflict


UkraineAlert

Mar 31, 2022

Putin will win unless the West sends Ukraine offensive weapons

By
Alyona Getmanchuk

Western weapons have played a key role in helping Ukraine to inflict punishing losses on Putin's invasion force but Russia may still secure a bloody victory if the democratic world fails to accelerate arms deliveries.


Conflict


European Union


UkraineAlert

Mar 29, 2022

Russia in retreat: Putin appears to admit defeat in the Battle for Kyiv

By
Peter Dickinson

Kremlin officials have announced plans to withdraw troops from the Kyiv region in what is widely being seen as a major setback for Putin's war and tacit recognition of Russia’s failure to seize the Ukrainian capital.


Conflict


National Security


UkraineAlert

Mar 28, 2022

No compromises with the Kremlin: Why we must denazify Putin’s Russia

By
Kateryna Zarembo

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims to be engaged in a crusade to "denazify" democratic Ukraine, but in reality it is his own increasingly authoritarian regime that is in urgent need of "denazification," writes Kateryna Zarembo.


Conflict


Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Mar 27, 2022

Russian energy embargo: Europe must stop financing Putin’s Ukraine war 

By
Diane Francis

Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko has accused European countries of funding Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and called for an immediate embargo on all Russian energy exports in order to stop the war.


Conflict


European Union


UkraineAlert

Mar 25, 2022

Ukraine’s southern capital Odesa prepares to repel Russian invasion

By
Oleksiy Goncharenko

Vladimir Putin must take Odesa if he wishes to subjugate the whole of Ukraine but the predominantly Russian-speaking Black Sea port city is in defiant mood amid preparations to repel the Russian invaders.


Conflict


Disinformation

spotlight

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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Content

UkraineAlert

Jul 1, 2015

Wake Up Europe. Peace Doesn’t Preserve Itself

By Stephen Blank

Amid multiple signs of an impending battle in Ukraine, NATO and Ukraine have stepped up their response. But so has Russia. Ukrainian officials claim to have 60,000 troops in the field against an estimated 54,000 Russian forces in the Donbas. A large-scale conventional theater in the Donbas is a real danger this summer. But Moscow […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 1, 2015

Why Ukraine Struggles to Reform

By Chris Miller

Listen to the proclamations of Ukraine’s political leaders and you might think the country is in the midst of rapid change. On June 4, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared that “reforms are the key word…The countdown of the period of reforms has started.” There is much talk of reform, but the reality is less impressive. […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 29, 2015

Exposing Russian Disinformation

By John B. Emerson

Editor’s note: Ambassador John B. Emerson gave the opening remarks at “Exposing Russian Disinformation in the 21st Century,” a conference sponsored by the Atlantic Council, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation on June 25, 2015 in Berlin. Emerson’s remarks have been shortened below. The full version is available here. Guten […]

Germany Russia

UkraineAlert

Jun 29, 2015

Youth platform is transforming Eastern Ukraine

By Melinda Haring

Freedom Home's platform is unique in eastern Ukraine, and its organizers want to make it sustainable.

Conflict Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

UkraineAlert

Jun 25, 2015

Why the West Should Give Ukraine’s New Spymaster a Chance

By John E. Herbst

Late June in Kyiv can be beautiful. With clear skies, temperatures peaking in the high 70s, the natural beauty of the city and its citizens, it can be easy to forget that the country is at war. In part that is a result of the country’s success. A year ago, few would have predicted that […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 25, 2015

Hey, Remember Me? It’s Europe.

By Ariel Cohen

The Transatlantic Alliance is in Trouble  “We lived next to Russia for 500 years—listen to what we have to say,” Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said at the Bratislava Global Security Forum on June 20. He’s right. The West needs to pay attention and achieve strategic clarity in Europe and beyond before it’s too late. There […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 24, 2015

Russia Bans Freedom to Report, Says Top Investigative Journalist

By Melinda Haring

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has banned US investigative journalist Simon Ostrovsky from working in Russia. On June 4, it denied a press visa for Ostrovsky, an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist best known for his coverage of the Ukraine crisis for VICE News.

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 23, 2015

Here’s How to Crowdsource Ukrainian Language and Culture

By Matthew Kupfer

On a scorching Saturday afternoon in the Pechersk district of Kyiv, a group of five young people take refuge in a cool alcove hidden at the back of the Ivan Honchar Museum for a free Ukrainian class. Together, for ninety minutes, they discuss that week’s subject, studentstvo (“student life”), learning new Ukrainian words to describe […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 22, 2015

Here’s How We Give Putin Something to Think About

By Jeffrey Gedmin

Imagine Winston Churchill saying: “We’ve got to send Nazi Germany a clear signal. At the same time we have to recognize that the Germans do need their lebensraum.” It’s unthinkable. But that’s what the West keeps saying to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The most recent example is United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond telling the BBC: […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 22, 2015

It’s Hard to Take Russian Propaganda Seriously. But We Must.

By James J. Coyle

Three Russian television stations interviewed Andrei Petkov from a hospital bed in Nikolayev, Ukraine, in April 2014. Rossia 1 described him, with a bandage on his nose, as an ordinary citizen attacked by neo-Nazis and nationalists; NTV named him a German spy for a secret European organization; and the National Independent News of Crimea identified him […]

Russia Ukraine