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

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

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

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

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

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

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

Aug 31, 2016

Russia and Turkey: Rapprochement and Its Implications

By
John E. Herbst

The rapprochement between Russia and Turkey is a significant geopolitical development that increases the leverage of each nation. Where the interests of Moscow and Ankara do not conflict, their new relationship will be useful to both. Yet their different interests limit the significance of the new amity.


Russia

Turkey


UkraineAlert

Aug 29, 2016

Have Ukraine’s Reforms Stalled?

By
Anders Åslund

Few Ukrainians realize how impressive their economic reforms were in 2015. The question today is whether that reform wave will continue, or has come to a halt. The slashing of energy subsidies by 10 percent of GDP by unifying energy prices from 2014 to 2016 was most important. As a consequence, Ukraine’s public expenditures fell […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 29, 2016

E-Declaration—and Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Strategy—in Jeopardy

By
Josh Cohen

A key element of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agenda is at a crossroads—and whether it is implemented on August 31 will indicate Kyiv’s commitment to reform. In October 2014, a new law requiring Ukrainian public officials to file an electronic declaration disclosing all of their financial assets was passed by parliament. This e-declaration law mandates that officials […]


Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 29, 2016

Three Mythologies of European Security

By
Stephen Blank

Samuel Johnson famously told his biographer James Boswell, “Clear your mind of cant.” In thinking about European security, we should do so, too.


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 26, 2016

How One University Defied Putin and His Armed Mob

By
Melinda Haring

On July 7, 2014, Russian-backed separatists entered Donetsk and occupied four dormitories at Donetsk National University; armed gunmen expelled students from their rooms in the middle of the night. Nine days later, the separatists seized the entire university. During that summer, separatists stole at least seventeen university vehicles and converted student dorms into barracks for […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 25, 2016

Ukraine: Forwards or Backwards? A Response to Thomas Theiner and James Brooke

By
Martin Nunn

When driving a car, it is essential to look forward to assess changing road conditions, new obstacles, and new opportunities. Prudent drivers—and investors—regularly check the rear view mirrors, but their main focus is on the future.


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 25, 2016

Does Ukraine Need an Anti-Corruption Court?

By
Thomas Firestone

The recent scandal surrounding alleged payments made to Paul Manafort by the former Ukrainian government has again cast a spotlight on corruption in Ukraine. Whatever one thinks of the Manafort story, no one can dispute that Ukrainians are entitled to an honest government that does not steal from them. But how can Ukraine achieve this […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 23, 2016

Russia is Surrounding Ukraine, but Where’s the West?

By
Aaron Korewa

In recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been doing what he is best at: war mongering. It began with the Kremlin’s accusation that Ukrainian leaders had “chosen terror over peace,” despite the fact Russia has not been able to produce any credible evidence of the alleged “sabotage plot” in Crimea. Additionally, neither the OSCE’s […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 19, 2016

The West Has a Ukraine Challenge, and It’s Not Going Away

By
Ariel Cohen

Since the Middle Ages, Kyivan Rus—the loose network of warring principalities whose borders vaguely coincide with today’s Ukraine—has been exposed to waves of invaders from neighboring states. This list of aggressors includes the Normans, Mongols, Poles, Ottomans, Habsburg Austrians, Germans, and Nazis—and not least, Muscovite Russians, the Romanov Russian Empire, and Bolsheviks. Each invasion destroyed […]


Russia

Ukraine


UkraineAlert

Aug 15, 2016

Why Putin Turns the Heat Up on Ukraine Now

By
James J. Coyle

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be preparing a new offensive in Ukraine. Russia has prepared an excuse for a military incursion to connect Crimea with rebel-held areas of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Fighting along the corridor has already heated up; the Ukrainian military reports that on the night of August 8 more than 200 […]


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

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

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

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

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

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

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

Jul 1, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch from Donetsk – How a Cease-Fire Failed

By Irena Chalupa

As Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced an end to the cease-fire by government forces fighting Russian-backed militants in the Donbas region of the southeast, new accounts emerged to show how futile was the ten-day truce. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry reported that the country’s armed forces lost 27 soldiers killed and 69 wounded. And from Donetsk, the […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 26, 2014

Amid the ‘Dirty War’ in Ukraine, Hundreds Have Disappeared – and a Few Volunteers Search for Them

By Irena Chalupa

Kateryna Serhatskova, a 26-year-old Russian reporter for the Ukrainian news website Ukrainska Pravda, is becoming one of the main documenters of the “dirty war” for control of the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine. Serhatskova, who lived for several years in Crimea, travels regularly to some of the most violent and fearful towns in the Donbas […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Jun 23, 2014

US, EU Should Use Sanctions to Push Russia for a Single Base Price for Gas Sales to Europe

By Irena Chalupa

Former US Ambassador Bryza Urges Stepped-Up Effort to End Political Pricing by Kremlin and Gazprom  Russia has unsheathed its gas weapon again, demanding higher prices this spring from Ukraine and announcing last week a cutoff in sales to its neighbor unless paid for in advance. (As Moscow twists Ukraine’s arm over gas, it has retreated […]

Energy & Environment Energy Markets & Governance

UkraineAlert

Jun 23, 2014

The New Ordeal of Nadiya Savchenko

By Irena Chalupa

Ukraine Military’s Most Famous Female Pilot is Now a Captive of Separatist Rebels She looks tired, her face slightly puffy, but her blue eyes are calm and clear, and she appears utterly unafraid. Dressed in military fatigues, her hair cut short, she sits in the corner of a white-tiled room, handcuffed to a set of […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 26, 2014

President-Elect Poroshenko’s Post-Election Remarks

President-elect Poroshenko makes his first remarks after Ukraine’s landmark elections. English subtitles available via close captioning, and translation available below.

Ukraine
REUTERS/Baz Ratner

UkraineAlert

May 12, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: ‘How I Voted – Four Times – Against the Donetsk People’s Republic’

By Irena Chalupa

Russian-Sponsored Rebels Hold a ‘Referendum’ on Separation from Ukraine, But a Local Journalist Finds It a Farce Donetsk resident Ihnat Svyachyshyn sets off to vote in the May 11 Donetsk separatist referendum. He asks his neighbors, a couple in their mid-twenties to join him but they refuse. While they support a federalization of political power […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 5, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: An End to Peace in Odessa

By Irena Chalupa

The Black Sea port of Odessa, Ukraine’s third-largest city and a coveted metropolis both for Ukrainians and Russians, became a battleground between pro-Russian militants and Ukrainians opposed to the country’s division. Accounts in Ukraine’s news media say the city’s police responded much as in the eastern Ukrainian cities hit by separatist violence so far, doing […]

Ukraine
REUTERS/Baz Ratner

UkraineAlert

May 2, 2014

Why Slaviansk? Ukraine is Attacking the Command Center of Russian-Backed Militias

By James Rupert

Ukraine has launched its most serious counter-attack yet on Russian-backed separatist militias at Slaviansk, a relatively minor city in eastern Ukraine. Slaviansk, by all evidence, serves as the main command center for the armed groups that have seized towns in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. The Ukrainian operation appears “well mounted with concern for the lives […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 1, 2014

Ukrainian Singer Ruslana Moves a Washington Crowd

By James Rupert

Her Chances of Moving Policy or Preventing a War Are Less Clear While song and emotion come effortlessly for Ukrainian musician and pro-democracy activist Ruslana Lyzhychko, she says she’s nervous about speaking publicly in English, a language with which she struggles. But Wednesday night she delivered a meticulously practiced appeal for Ukraine to 900 of […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

May 1, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Ukrainians’ Fears of Russian Violence Straddles Their Border

By Irena Chalupa

Why are Russia’s nearly 2 million Ukrainians silent? That is the question of Ukrainian educator Iryna Kluchkovska  asks in the mainstream daily broadsheet Den (The Day). Russia’s annexation of Crimea and sponsorship of violent uprisings in Ukraine’s east have mobilized Ukrainian communities to protest in New York, Sydney, Munich and elsewhere, she writes. But the […]

Russia Ukraine