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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

Dec 13, 2022

Vladimir Putin: 2022 Loser of the Year

By
Peter Dickinson

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is the biggest loser of 2022. His disastrous decision to invade Ukraine has left Russia internationally isolated and shattered the country's reputation as a military superpower.


Belarus


Central Asia


UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2022

Fresh challenges threaten to reverse Ukraine’s judicial reform progress

By
Mykhailo Zhernakov, Nestor Barchuk

Ukrainians are currently fighting against Russian invasion but far from the battlefield judicial reforms that hold the key to Ukraine’s transformation into a nation governed by the rule of law are at risk of unraveling.


Civil Society


Conflict


UkraineAlert

Dec 9, 2022

Zelenskyy urges special tribunal for Russian aggression against Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urging the international community to establish a special tribunal for the crime of aggression in order to prosecute Russia’s political and military leadership.


Conflict


European Union


UkraineAlert

Dec 8, 2022

Shakhtar’s young Ukrainians roar as foreign soccer stars flee Putin’s war

By
David Kirichenko

Ukrainian soccer giant Shakhtar Donetsk suffered an exodus of foreign stars following Russia's full-scale invasion but the club managed to mount an impressive Champions League campaign by relying on young Ukrainian talent.


Conflict


Crisis Management


UkraineAlert

Dec 7, 2022

Melinda Haring: Ukraine’s unquenchable thirst for freedom inspires me

By
Melinda Haring

Melinda Haring signs off on eight years at the Atlantic Council with love letter to Ukraine recounting how the East European country captured her heart with its intoxicating lust for life and unquenchable thirst for freedom.


Civil Society


Conflict


UkraineAlert

Dec 6, 2022

Russia must stop being an empire if it wishes to prosper as a nation

By
Taras Kuzio

Post-Soviet Russia never shed the imperial identity inherited from the Soviet and Czarist past but Putin's disastrous invasion of Ukraine could now set the stage for the emergence of a post-imperial Russian identity.


Central Asia


Conflict


UkraineAlert

Dec 5, 2022

Russia’s Ukraine invasion is fueling an energy crisis in neighboring Moldova

By
Alexander St. Leger

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is helping to fuel an energy crisis in neighboring Moldova where an over-reliance on Kremlin energy imports has long served to make the country vulnerable to Russian political pressure.


Conflict


Corruption


UkraineAlert

Dec 1, 2022

Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian Genocide: Nobody can claim they did not know

By
Peter Dickinson

The overwhelming evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine together with the openly genocidal intent on display in Moscow mean nobody claim they did not know about Putin's Ukrainian Genocide, writes Peter Dickinson.


Conflict


Disinformation


UkraineAlert

Nov 30, 2022

As Putin retreats in Ukraine, he is also losing Kazakhstan

By
Kamila Auyezova

Putin's rapidly unraveling invasion of Ukraine is eroding Russian influence throughout the former Soviet Empire. This process of imperial retreat is nowhere more visible than in Kazakhstan, writes Kamila Auyezova.


Central Asia


China


UkraineAlert

Nov 29, 2022

Fueling Ukraine’s fight back against Russia’s blackout blitz

By
Oleksiy Chernyshov

Russia's bombing campaign of civilian infrastructure means Ukraine faces the toughest winter season in the country's 31-year independent history, writes newly appointed Naftogaz CEO Oleksiy Chernyshov.


Conflict


Energy Markets & Governance

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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.

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

Aug 28, 2014

Russia Secretively Buries its Soldiers Killed in the Ukraine War

By Irena Chalupa

Russian military officials stood at a cemetery surrounded by forest in far northwestern Russia, early Tuesday morning, and carefully vetted the army officers, soldiers and family members arriving for a funeral to be held in secrecy. Two paratroopers from Russia’s 76th Airborne Division were to be buried. They died last week – no one would […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 28, 2014

Russian Troops in Ukraine: It’s Really an Invasion After All

By James Rupert

As Media Harden Their Accounts of Russia’s Assault, Will the West Harden Its Response? Russia’s attacks into Ukraine this week (exactly six months after its troops began their invasion of Crimea) are bringing the actual word ”invasion” into media headlines. Atlantic Council analysts and others say the key question now is how hard a response […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 25, 2014

Ukraine’s Independence Day: Opposed Observances

By Irena Chalupa

Rebels Parade Prisoners to Declare That Ukraine Is Nazi-Inspired Ukraine’s government marked the country’s twenty-third anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union yesterday with a military parade and a vow by President Petro Poroshenko to sustain Ukraine’s war against Russian-sponsored separatists in the southeast. In Donetsk, the separatists paraded bruised and dirty Ukrainian soldiers, their […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 14, 2014

Watching For Putin’s Plan ‘B’ in Ukraine

By James Rupert

With Kremlin’s Proxy War Stumbling, Kyiv and West Guard Against ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ As Russia’s government moves its proposed convoy of humanitarian aid toward the war zone in Ukraine that it has created with its support of separatist militias, Ukraine and Western governments are warning it not to try using Russian military forces on the border […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 14, 2014

New Ukraine Orthodox Leader Signals Continued Church Divide

By Irena Chalupa

Ukrainians’ Traditional Loyalty to Moscow Patriarch is Strained by His Close Tie to Kremlin  The longstanding divide between Ukraine’s two main Orthodox churches will continue with little change following the election yesterday of a new leader, or metropolitan, by the Moscow-aligned faction. Metropolitan Onufriy is a religious conservative loyal to his church’s formal subordination to […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 11, 2014

Russian-Backed Rebels Put a Local Man Out Front, But Still Look Divided

By Irena Chalupa

Separatists Show No Unity Under New Donetsk ‘Prime Minister,’ Kremlin Paper Says The Kremlin and its proxy rebellion in southeastern Ukraine seemed to recognize last week that as a supposedly Ukrainian uprising, it should have a titular Ukrainian leader, rather than a Moscow-based Russian ultra-nationalist with ties to the Kremlin. So after three months as […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 7, 2014

Putin Will Decide Captured Ukrainian Pilot’s Fate, Her Lawyer Says

By Irena Chalupa

Nadiya Savchenko’s Trial is Political, Not Legal, Says Human Rights Attorney Mark Feygin Although a Russian court is preparing to try Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko on war-related charges, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who will decide her fate, said Savchenko’s defense attorney, Russian human rights lawyer Mark Feygin.

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 7, 2014

Kremlin Silences Crimea’s Last Pro-Ukraine TV Station

By Irena Chalupa

Shutdown Virtually Completes Muffling of Crimean Media On August 1, police in Crimea entered the headquarters of the Chornomorska Television Company to shut it down, virtually completing Russia’s silencing of all Ukrainian and independent media on the peninsula five months after its invasion. The Moscow-backed authorities had already halted other Ukrainian broadcasts and have progressively been constricting Chornomorska […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Aug 4, 2014

‪‪Why The EU Finally Decided on Strong Sanctions

By John E. Herbst

Russian Fighters’ Thuggishness Eroded Germany’s Putin-Verstehen ‪Last week was a good one for both the transatlantic relationship and the cause of freedom in Ukraine. It followed weeks in which Moscow had escalated its war in southeast Ukraine, sending advanced weaponry and more fighters, and directly shelling Ukrainian forces. On Tuesday, after a month of dawdling, […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jul 31, 2014

From Lugansk to Las Vegas: The Corrupt Empire of Oleksander Yefremov

By Irena Chalupa

How a Ukrainian Boss and His Political Machine Have Helped Russia’s Attack on Ukraine Oleksander Yefremov, a boyish-looking sixty-year-old, is one of eastern Ukraine’s most prominent politicians and businessmen. For over a decade, he has been the corrupt strongman of Lugansk, one of the two provinces where Russia’s government and military have been sponsoring the […]

Russia Ukraine