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

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

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

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

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

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

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

Sep 13, 2017

Does Russia Have Hard Power in the US?

By
Lada Roslycky

There is something naïve about many people born in democratic countries. They seem to take the human rights, values, and principles upon which their countries are built for granted. Dangerously, they have a difficult time imagining that their rights and freedoms can be manipulated in such a way as to threaten their institutions, national security, […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Sep 12, 2017

Russia’s Peacekeeping Proposal in Ukraine Is a Sham

By
James J. Coyle

Russia has introduced a United Nations draft resolution for peacekeepers in Ukraine amid acclaim by German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and the chairman of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE). On its face, this would appear to meet a long-standing demand of the government in Kyiv and mark a reversal of Russia’s […]


International Organizations

Politics & Diplomacy


UkraineAlert

Sep 12, 2017

North Korean Missile Engines: Not from Ukraine

By
Mariana Budjeryn and Andrew Zhalko-Tytarenko

A new report points to Ukraine as a possible source of liquid propellant engines (LPE) powering intercontinental-range missiles successfully ground-tested by North Korea last year and flight-tested this year. As the world grapples with the fait accompli of North Korean nuclear and missile capability, the path Pyongyang took to acquire it is of considerable interest, […]


Korea

Russia


UkraineAlert

Sep 12, 2017

Ukrainians’ Stock Soars in Central Europe as Employers Vie for Labor

By
James Brooke

One of this summer’s big lessons is that the image of Ukrainians has turned around in the region. As Central European governments fight to block EU-mandated quotas of asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq, Ukraine has emerged as the region’s source of desirable guest workers. Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Estonian governments have set up recruiting […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Sep 7, 2017

Scarred: How Famine Shaped Modern Ukraine and Russia

By
Diane Francis

In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin committed crimes against humanity by purposely starving to death more than four million Ukrainians for resisting his Five-Year Plan to collectivize agriculture. Millions more fled and in 1937, Stalin executed or imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian leaders and influencers. For three more generations, Russia kept Stalin’s genocide hidden until […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Sep 7, 2017

Pyongyang’s Ambitions Have Nothing to Do with Kyiv and Everything to Do with Moscow

By
Lada Roslycky

The North Korean leadership, headed by 33-year-old Kim Jong-un, is openly threatening its neighbors, as well as the United States, with missile strikes. How has this little country, most of whose citizens live in poverty, managed to cause such a global security issue? A recent New York Times article accused Ukraine of illegally supplying rocket […]


Korea

Russia


UkraineAlert

Sep 7, 2017

Will Ukraine’s Parliament Accomplish Anything This Fall?

By
Olena Prokopenko and Christina Parandii

On September 5, a new political season began in Ukraine. Parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy has already branded parliament’s new plenary session “the autumn of reforms” by promising to deliver results on some of the most hot-button issues, including healthcare, pension, education, and judicial reforms. Parliament is behind and needs to kick things into high gear; […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Sep 5, 2017

Should the US Arm Ukraine? For the Answer, Look to the Soviet-Afghan War

By
Johnny Herbst

In February 2014, Russia seized and annexed Crimea; a few weeks later, Moscow launched its no-longer-covert hybrid war against Ukraine in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. It is now 2017 and the situation remains relatively unchanged. The conflict in the east is at a standstill, no side has a clear advantage, and it appears that […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Sep 5, 2017

Parliament Is the Problem in Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

September marks the beginning of season 48 of “Game of Chairs,” otherwise known as the Ukrainian parliament. As the country’s MPs return for the autumn parliamentary session, few will be tuning in. While the palace intrigues and Machiavellian plot twists of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” makes for compulsive viewing, the ideological ambiguity and backroom dealing […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Sep 4, 2017

How to Finish the Revolution in Ukraine

By
Olena Sotnyk

More than three years after the Euromaidan, Ukraine still hasn’t successfully prosecuted any high-level crooks, and we’ve got plenty here. At Stanford University’s Draper Hills Summer Fellowship this summer, we examined how to catch a “big fish” and looked at a case study in Indonesia, where the country’s anticorruption commission had just begun. Despite being […]


Ukraine

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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

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

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

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

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

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

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

Apr 7, 2015

Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Former Putin advisor says they will not, advocates stronger response Western sanctions on Russia are not working and a proposal to provide defensive weapons to Ukrainian security forces will not deter the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, according to Andrei Illarionov, a former advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “For those few people who are there […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 7, 2015

Putin’s Chilling Message to the West

By Ariel Cohen

Vladimir Putin’s 10-day disappearance shortly after the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and his triumphal reappearance after the broadcast of a 150-minute documentary on state television, suggest a more erratic—and aggressive—policy course in Russia. Here’s why. After Putin’s disappearance on March 5, the Russian media and the blogosphere dealt with little else.  However, the […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 2, 2015

The IMF’s Very Tough Love for Ukraine

By Yuriy Gorodnichenko

As Kyiv Slashes Spending, the Economy’s Real Shrinkage This Year May Be 10, Not 6, Percent The International Monetary Fund last month threw what looks like a much-improved financial lifeline to Ukraine—and indeed, the new loan program is welcome help for a desperate need. But a check on the math of one prominent IMF realist […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 31, 2015

In Ukraine, the Real Fight is for Europe

By Stephen Blank

Putin’s War is Not Over Donbas, but a New Russian Empire According to Vladimir Putin, Crimea and Ukraine are where the spiritual sources of Russia’s nationhood lie. And he “always saw the Russians and Ukrainians as a single people. I still think this way now.” People observing the crisis triggered by Putin’s aggression against Ukraine […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 31, 2015

Russia Plans Spring Offensive in Ukraine, Warns Ex-NATO Chief Wesley Clark

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Russian-backed separatists are planning a fresh offensive in eastern Ukraine that could come within a matter of months, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, warned March 30. “What is happening now is preparations for a renewed offensive from the east,” and this could take place following Orthodox Easter, on April 12, […]

NATO Russia

UkraineAlert

Mar 26, 2015

Less-Stringent Minsk II Terms Paved the Way for Renewed Sanctions

By John E. Herbst

On March 19, delegates at the European Union Summit in Brussels agreed to extend tough sanctions against Moscow—until year’s end if necessary—to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to implement the Minsk II ceasefire. Under terms of that deal, signed on February 12, EU sanctions won’t be lifted until Ukraine takes back full control of its […]

European Union Germany

UkraineAlert

Mar 26, 2015

Putin’s War Has Consolidated Ukraine

By Alexander Motyl

Viewed historically, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war is the product of four deeper causes and one trigger. First, the Soviet empire’s collapse in 1991 propelled its successor state, Russia, to seek reimperialization for structural and ideological reasons. Second, the emergence of a “fascistoid” (or almost fully fascist) regime made imperial revival a central feature of Vladimir […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 26, 2015

Ukraine’s Powerful Billionaire Governor Quits After Clash With Kyiv

By New Atlanticist

Dnipropetrovsk’s Kolomoyskyi: Patriotic, Corrupt, Threatening—Or All Three? Ukrainian billionaire politician Ihor Kolomoyskyi resigned today as governor of Ukraine’s strategically critical Dnipropetrovsk province after clashing with the central government and parliament over control of two state-owned oil-sector companies. In that clash, Kolomoyskyi last week sent troops of an armed militia he controls to occupy the Kyiv […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 18, 2015

EU Will Kick the Can Down the Road on Russia Sanctions

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Europeans do not want to undermine Minsk II, says analyst European Union leaders meeting in Brussels on March 19 are unlikely to either ramp up or lift sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, says Edward W. Walker, a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley. “It’s very likely that […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 18, 2015

Sanctions Are Still the Answer

By John E. Herbst

Last week, UkraineAlert linked to an interesting piece by Clifford Gaddy criticizing the West’s sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. His point is this: Putin believes that Russia is “under assault” by the West and cannot allow Ukraine “to be brought fully into the sphere of influence of its enemy.” Therefore, the West […]

Russia Ukraine
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