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.

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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

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

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

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

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

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

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

Feb 21, 2017

The KGB and Me

By
Jeffrey Gedmin

We overlapped, Vladimir Putin and me. Putin arrived in Dresden in August 1985 as a 32-year-old KGB major. He was working undercover as a consular officer, recruiting academics, journalists, and business people to spy for the Soviet Union in the West. I was in Dresden and throughout communist East Germany often in those days; I […]


Germany

Russia


UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Heavens Are Home to More than One Hundred

By
Robert McConnell

In the fall of 2013, students took to the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv in protest. Their complaint was with then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who had reneged on his pledge to sign the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine and was instead negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Euromaidan was underway. Additional protesters streamed into the […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 20, 2017

The Nuclear Fallout of a Possible Trump-Putin Détente

By
Mariana Budjeryn and Andreas Umland

So far, US President Donald Trump’s Russia policy remains a mystery. Does he want to set in motion a US-Russia rapprochement? If so, sanctions against Russia may be increasingly difficult to sustain. The Trump administration might judge Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity to be a bothersome yet insufficient impediment to mending fences with Putin and, […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 17, 2017

Who’s Up and Who’s Down in Eastern Ukraine?

By
Oleksandr Nykonorov and Volodymyr Yermolenko

The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) are self-proclaimed entities that emerged in spring 2014 in eastern Ukraine thanks to massive Russian support. Ukraine’s attempts to retake them in spring and summer 2014 were stopped by a full-scale Russian military offensive that August. This more or less fixed the demarcation line between […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Multiculturalism Is the Answer to Ukraine’s Identity Crisis

By
Peter Dickinson

Celebrating diversity: that’s the official theme of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Kyiv this May. This is an inspired choice; Ukraine has been one of Europe’s most diverse and multicultural lands for centuries. Since the Soviet collapse, this organic multiculturalism has played a disappointingly minor role in Ukraine’s nation-building efforts. […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 15, 2017

Arm Ukraine Now

By
Alexander J. Motyl

The case against providing lethal weapons to Ukraine has rested on a simple argument: If the United States provides arms to Kyiv, Moscow will escalate the war in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin would up the ante with even more arms or intensify its military pressure on Ukraine. According to this logic, since escalation benefits no […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 9, 2017

What’s Behind the Flare-Up in Eastern Ukraine?

By
Volodymyr Yermolenko and Tetyana Ogarkova

On January 29, the fighting in Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine within Ukrainian government-controlled territory, seriously escalated. The fighting began close to the demarcation line and six kilometers north of Donetsk (see map), and continued until at least February 3. According to official reports, thirteen Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 93 were wounded since […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2017

Six Outrageous Lies Russian Disinformation Peddled about Europe in 2016

By
Jakub Janda and Ilyas Sharibzhanov

Russian disinformation is working overtime to undermine European democracies. Much of the disinformation in 2016 came from original Russian sources that presented poorly digested information designed to provoke and to push an agenda that the Kremlin finds favorable. It aims to disconnect ordinary European citizens from supranational EU institutions and national politicians. With key elections in […]


Germany

Northern Europe


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2017

Women Held Up Half the Sky to Defend Ukraine

By
Diane Francis

In China, women are poetically referred to as “half the sky.” During the most dangerous hours of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, when tanks and water cannons and snipers were trained on protesters, roughly half of the Ukrainian activists were females of all ages. Now, the new film “Women of Maidan” beautifully portrays the critical role […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Feb 8, 2017

Ukraine’s Next Big Gas Deadline Is Two Years Away: Will It Be Ready?

By
Oksana Bedratenko

The European gas market has become more integrated and more competitive since the 2009 gas crisis when Russia turned off the tap for nearly a week and Europe practically froze. Europe has increased the resilience of its gas system by building interconnections between pipelines, expanding its storage network, and diversifying gas supplies by creating infrastructure […]


Russia

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

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

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

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

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

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

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

Jan 9, 2015

What the Kremlin’s Setback May Mean

By Elizabeth Pond

Economics Have Stalled Putin, But He Often Answers Reversals With Military Threats In the Ukraine crisis, soft economic power last month trumped hard military power for the first time. The threatened meltdown of the Russian economy could push Russian President Vladimir Putin to dial down his undeclared war on Ukraine in return for some easing […]

Eastern Europe Russia

UkraineAlert

Jan 9, 2015

January: An Important Month for Shaping the US Role in Europe

By Ian Brzezinski

Amid Ukraine-Russia Crisis, New Decisions Will Define America’s ‘Force Posture’ for Years to Come Almost a year after Russia’s invasions of Ukraine, the US government will roll out a series of decisions in the next month that will play a big role in shaping how the United States and its transatlantic allies respond in the long […]

Eastern Europe Europe & Eurasia

UkraineAlert

Jan 6, 2015

As Kyiv Tackles Corruption and Reform, a New Threat: Warlords

By New Atlanticist

Kyiv’s Government Is Failing to Act Against Some Volunteer Defense Units Now Acting Like Outlaws, Adrian Karatnycky Writes As Ukraine’s new parliament and cabinet are tackling corruption and the country’s fiscal crisis with the energy of an unprecedented new crop of civic activists, pro-democracy activists and skilled technocrats, a new threat is arising: outlaw-style threats […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jan 6, 2015

Ukraine’s Crisis in 2015: What to Expect

By New Atlanticist

Donbas War Will Last All Year; May Be Settled With Early Parliament Election, Mefford Writes How predictable is Ukraine’s coming year, given its financial crisis, its untested new government and, above all, its war against Russia and its proxy forces in the southeastern region of Donbas? Not very predictable, notes the Atlantic Council’s Kyiv-based senior […]

Eastern Europe Russia

UkraineAlert

Dec 29, 2014

For 2015, Six Critical Themes for Meeting Russia’s Threat to Europe

By James Rupert

A Crisis Index by Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Throughout Russia’s assault this year on Ukraine, one of Europe’s most dangerous wars since the close of World War II, the Atlantic Council has analyzed the conflict for ways to sustain Europe’s stability and the right of 43 million Ukrainians to the independent, democratic future they have chosen. […]

Eastern Europe Russia

UkraineAlert

Dec 29, 2014

Ukraine’s Got Talent: New Anti-Corruption Bureau Includes Big Names

By New Atlanticist

Still, Ukrainians Wait to See Concrete Steps to End a System of Graft Ukraine’s new government is on track to pass a painfully austere budget by the end of the year, according to the Atlantic Council’s Kyiv-based senior fellow, Brian Mefford. The other center of attention is the government’s establishment of a National Anti-Corruption Bureau, […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Dec 27, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: A Retired Russian Army Officer Sends Paid ‘Volunteers’ to Fight in Ukraine

By James Rupert

Kremlin Quietly Supports Network That Sends Thousands of Russian Veterans to Donbas War In Yekaterinburg, the main city of Russia’s Ural region, retired army officer Vladimir Yefimov organizes army veterans to fight for Russia in southeastern Ukraine, more than 1,000 miles away. While Russia’s deployment of army troops and non-official Russian “volunteer” fighters in Ukraine […]

Eastern Europe Russia

UkraineAlert

Dec 23, 2014

In the War for Ukraine’s Donbas, the Ordeal of a Frontline Town

By Irena Chalupa

Far From Kyiv and Next to Donetsk, the Elderly of Pisky Get Daily Shelling, But No Pensions Before this year’s war in southeast Ukraine, the town of Pisky, at the edge of the city of Donetsk, was home to about 3,000 people. Many were academics who worked at the local Donetsk Institute of Agricultural Production. […]

Eastern Europe Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Dec 23, 2014

As US and Europe Press Ukraine to Reform, They Also Must Help Save It from Default

By Sabine Freizer

The Ukrainian Project to Keep Europe Whole and Free Needs Adequate Financing—and Quickly  Ukraine’s new government has unleashed a “tiger team” of ministers committed to quick and comprehensive reforms—but as that work begins, the costs of war and recession have pushed Ukraine to the edge of default.  Ukraine has begun to take steps to slash […]

European Union International Organizations

UkraineAlert

Dec 19, 2014

Putin Leaves All Options Open on Economic Crisis and Ukraine War

By James Rupert

Pascual: As Russia Faces Economic Downturn, West Should Probe Kremlin on Chances of a Merkel-Brokered Deal In his annual press conference this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered no clear suggestion for how he proposes to dig Russia out of its deepening economic hole. And he signaled no new direction in government’s sponsorship of the […]

Russia Ukraine
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