Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
The Battles Are in the Donbas, But the War Is in the Energy Sector
The energy sector is key to the success of Ukraine’s economic reforms, battle against corruption, and independence from Russia. Ukraine carried out far-reaching reforms to the energy sector in 2015; now it must complete the substantial reforms that have been undertaken.Energy is the linchpin of Ukraine’s dependence on Russia. The...
Revealing Europe’s Best-Kept Secret
Early April will see the closure of Ukraine Today, which had been the only full-time English language TV news service offering Ukrainian perspectives to international audiences. The channel will reportedly continue online, but the end of its broadcasting is a sobering development hinting at the difficulties of finding sufficient funding for major...
Shokin’s Revenge: Ukraine’s Odious Prosecutor General Fires Honest Deputy Before Parliament Sacks Him
On March 29, the Ukrainian Rada finally approved the resignation of Ukraine’s disreputable Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. He was voted out with an overwhelming majority of 289 votes, including 114 of the 134 deputies of the Poroshenko Bloc. On February 16, Shokin was forced to submit his letter of resignation in connection with the...
US Presidential Politics Play Poorly in Odesa
US President Barack Obama’s refusal to militarily defend Ukraine against Russian aggression has sent a chill halfway around the world to Odesa, the Black Sea port only 200 kilometers by warship from Crimea.In the April issue of The Atlantic, Obama says: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to...
Sick of the Ukraine Crisis? Then Arm Ukraine
Building Up Ukraine’s Military is the Counterintuitive Solution to Peace Western policymakers who believe the Minsk accords would work if only Ukraine made the requisite constitutional and electoral concessions are missing a key point: that they, and Russia, forced Ukraine to make security its priority by violating the 1994 Budapest...
Slovyansk Recovers from Russian Occupation
The fast train travels the nearly 700 kilometers from Kyiv to Slovyansk in just under six hours. It stops a few times before arriving at the train station in the suburbs of Slovyansk, the small city of 125,000 that Moscow’s agents seized and held for nearly three months shortly after its hybrid war in Ukraine’s east began in early...
Ukraine and Turkey’s Newly Strengthened Relationship
Turkey and Ukraine, including Crimea, control 71 percent of the Black Sea coast between the two of them. With Ukraine to the north and Turkey directly to the south, the two nations have long been collegial when working together on regional problems, but their reasonably friendly relationship has generally been subordinated to more pressing...
Separatists Launch New “Passportization” Strategy in Eastern Ukraine
On March 16, the separatist leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) began issuing their own passports in eastern Ukraine. The territory’s militant leader Aleksander Zakharchenko called the move “a very important step toward building statehood” that will serve to solidify and formalize the territory’s...
Memo to Secretary Kerry: Russia Is Weaker Than You Think
When US Secretary of State John Kerry goes to Moscow this week, he should keep in mind that Russia’s recent military engagements in Ukraine and Syria represent an attempt to manipulate perceptions. The Kremlin wants to position itself as a peer of America, open to cooperation against ISIS, but capable of military threats against US allies,...
Russian Court Finds Ukraine’s Defiant Pilot Savchenko Guilty
Nothing in the Nadiya Savchenko case has been easy or fast. The famed Ukrainian pilot whom Russia has charged with complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists can’t even get a quick verdict at the end of a trial that has lasted nine months.On March 22, the court found Savchenko guilty of all charges and sentenced her to twenty-two...
