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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

Oct 24, 2020

Ukraine’s gas market reforms can fuel change across Eastern Europe

By
Aura Sabadus

Ukraine’s post-2014 energy sector experience is both a success story and a role model. It is also proving increasingly persuasive in a neighborhood where energy sector reform is long overdue.


Eastern Europe


Energy Markets & Governance


UkraineAlert

Oct 22, 2020

US expands sanctions against Putin’s pipeline

By
Diane Francis

US officials have this week announced more constraints on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline project and put firms still involved on notice that they have 30 days to wind down operations.


European Union


Geopolitics & Energy Security


UkraineAlert

Oct 22, 2020

City-by-city guide to Ukraine’s local elections

By
Brian Mefford

Ukrainians will vote in local elections on October 25. Brian Mefford offers a city-by-city guide to the mayoral races across the country and predicts who is likely to win in each of Ukraine's major cities.


Elections


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Oct 21, 2020

Russian revival in Ukraine: Pro-Kremlin parties tipped to advance in local elections

By
Mykola Vorobiov

Ukrainians vote in local elections this weekend. With President Zelenskyy’s ratings in decline, many see the ballot as an opportunity for Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces to regain the political initiative.


Elections


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Oct 20, 2020

Battle for borshch: Ukraine lays claim to soup dish amid identity war with Russia

By
Mark Raczkiewycz

Popular soup dish borshch has recently emerged as the latest battleground in Ukraine’s struggle to assert an independent national identity and shake off centuries of Russian imperial domination.


Conflict


Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Oct 20, 2020

Time for Europe to rethink the Trans-Balkan pipeline

By
Sergey Makagon

A strategic asset with a transit capacity of 27 bcm per year, the Trans-Balkan gas corridor can and should be a guarantee of energy security for Southeastern Europe. It is time for the EU to rethink its approach.


European Union


Geopolitics & Energy Security


UkraineAlert

Oct 17, 2020

NBU Governor: Ukraine’s robust banking sector is poised for privatizations

By
Kyrylo Shevchenko

The Ukrainian banking sector has passed the coronavirus test and proven that it has never been in more robust shape. This bodes well for a series of planned privatizations of state-owned banks.


Coronavirus


Economy & Business


UkraineAlert

Oct 14, 2020

Political pressure threatens Ukraine’s gas sector reforms

By
Aura Sabadus

The early October resignation of American citizen Amos Hochstein from the Naftogaz supervisory board is sparking alarm over the future direction of the state-owned Ukrainian energy sector giant.


Energy Markets & Governance


Energy Transitions


UkraineAlert

Oct 13, 2020

Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces plotting winter of discontent

By
Bohdan Nahaylo

With President Zelenskyy's party set to do badly in Ukraine's October 25 local elections, the country's oligarchic and pro-Russian forces are hoping to regain the political momentum with a winter of discontent.


Democratic Transitions


Elections


UkraineAlert

Oct 13, 2020

Britain and Ukraine unveil new strategic partnership

By
Bate C Toms

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent state visit to the UK was the most consequential foreign relations act of his presidency to date and saw the unveiling of a new strategic partnership.


Cybersecurity


Maritime Security

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