Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
In the Face of Russian Aggression in Ukraine, a New US Agenda for Europe
Since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, the world has seen precious little Western leadership when it comes to confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin—despite US and European Union sanctions, recent efforts to strengthen NATO’s conventional deterrence in Europe, and the first signs of increased defense spending in Europe. Even...
Ukraine Must Privatize Failing State-Owned Enterprises Quickly
Privatization has generated controversy in every post-communist country. Ministers of privatization are usually accused of heinous crimes, regardless of how impeccably they have performed their jobs. Yet privatization is vital for all such nations, not least for Ukraine. The goal must be to limit state-owned enterprises so that the private sector...
Russian Narrative of Ukraine Conflict Fails to Sway Opinions in Odesa
Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region is strewn with remnants of Russian-made cartridges from AK-74U rifles, littered with the splintered, hollowed-out ruins of Russian-made BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, and scarred with the skeletons of Russian T-74B battle tanks. Yet the Kremlin’s incursion into Ukrainian territory is not isolated to...
Frozen Conflict in Moldova’s Transnistria: A Fitting Analogy to Ukraine’s Hybrid War?
History is a great teacher, so it’s no surprise that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and his subsequent Kremlin speech justifying it brought back memories of the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland in 1938. Parallels between Hitler and Putin abound, as do their motivations and the...
Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work
The United States must expand the scope of its sanctions well beyond Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle if this effort—a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine—is to have any real impact, says a Russian lawmaker. “The [US] government machine is doing what it can do,...
NATO, EU Need Political Will from Europe to Tackle Challenges
In recent years we have witnessed significant changes in Europe’s eastern and southern neighborhood that have had a profoundly negative impact on our security. The threat from the East, whose nature could be described as traditional or conventional, stems from Russia’s aggressive posture. The illegal annexation of Crimea and the armed...
Things Are Looking Up for Ukraine: Debt Deal Reached
Today Ukraine received great news. Private owners of $19 billion of Ukraine’s Eurobonds have agreed to a substantial debt restructuring that will give Ukraine much-needed relief. The high bond yields have been sharply reduced, the bonds’ maturities have been prolonged, and the face value of the bonds has been reduced by 20...
How the West Can Stop Russia’s Escalating War in Ukraine
This month, Russia stepped up military pressure on Ukraine, concentrating about fifty thousand troops along its border with Ukraine, using its proxy militias to shell Ukrainian government positions in the Donbas, and threatening Kyiv with “a big war.”The current escalation indicates Russian discontent with Ukraine’s refusal to...
Ukraine Has Every Right to Play Hardball With Its Creditors
As Ukraine fights Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas, the government is simultaneously engaged in a battle with its foreign creditors for the debt relief it desperately needs to prevent a full-scale economic collapse. Ukraine owes $32 billion in foreign currency Eurobonds.To stave off disaster, the International Monetary Fund and other...
Ukraine Steps Up Efforts to Recover Stolen Assets Abroad
Two Kyiv-based women—a lawyer who heads a state agency created to reclaim stolen assets abroad and a social activist-turned-politician who’s made a career out of exposing official corruption—spoke August 20 in Washington about their efforts to clean up Ukraine.Olena Tyshchenko is director of the Agency for Asset Recovery at Ukraine’s...
