Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
Retribution in the New Crimea
In March 2015, the Atlantic Council and Freedom House published a report by Crimean journalist Andrii Klymenko showing how Russia’s occupation and annexation of Crimea has unleashed an ongoing chain of human rights violations across the peninsula.Five days after release of the report—Human Rights Abuses in Russian-Occupied...
How Oligarchs Have Ruined Ukraine’s Economy and How to Fix It
Ukraine finds itself in an economic crisis of massive proportions. In the past twelve months, its GDP has contracted by over 7.5 percent, the national deficit exceeds 10 percent, its currency has lost more than 50 percent of its value, its banks are insolvent and the national debt-to-GDP ratio has ballooned to more than 100 percent—causing a...
Euromaidan’s Shockwaves: An Exile in Ukraine Recalls Fleeing his Native Kyrgyzstan
On a recent warm summer night, Ilya Lukash sat in a bar near Kyiv’s trendy Kontraktova Square, drinking a beer and chatting with his friends in Ukrainian, Russian, and English. In a red T-shirt emblazoned with patriotic Ukrainian slogans, he could easily have been any one of the countless young, educated, pro-democracy Ukrainians who in...
Russia Threatens Ukrainian Pilot Nadiya Savchenko with 25-Year Jail Term
Nadiya Savchenko, Ukraine’s most famous female military officer, has languished in a Moscow prison for more than a year since Moscow-backed separatists captured her in eastern Ukraine last June and smuggled across the border to Russia shackled, her head covered by a sack. Now her captors have moved her again—and again under the cover of...
Here’s How the EU Can Get Putin’s Attention
How would the West react to a major escalation of the war in eastern Ukraine? What would Brussels and Washington do if Russia continues to send troops there?Even though analysts often suggest arming Ukraine with defensive weapons, what people sometimes forget is that the West is still, by far, Russia’s largest trade and investment partner....
The Future of Ukraine’s Default
On July 24, 2015, Ukraine paid a $120 million coupon to service its sovereign debt. In many ways, this event is a moment of truth: it signals that there is a prospect of reaching an agreement with Ukraine’s creditors.Earlier this year, Ukraine signed a major deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF agreed to loan $17.5...
Ukraine’s IDP Crisis Worsens as Local Attitudes Harden
Ukraine officially has 1,381,953 internally displaced persons (IDPs), the country’s Ministry of Social Policy (MoSP) reported July 10. Overall, more than 2.3 million Ukrainians—including IDPs and those seeking refuge abroad—have been uprooted by conflict since March 2014.Yet the actual number of IDPs remains unknown and is likely to be...
Kremlin Stages Fake Separatist Stunt in Lviv
Western leaders pressing Ukraine to give into Russian demands and offer the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics autonomy would be well-advised to take note of the other parts of Ukraine which, according to Russian media, are also demanding self-rule.On July 17, approximately twenty people in Lviv staged a blitzkrieg...
The Enemy Within: Paramilitaries and the Ukrainian State
Ukrainian paramilitaries pose an increasingly existential threat to Kyiv. Earlier this year, Kyiv launched an initiative to bring them under their direct control. But despite their nominal subordination to Kyiv’s security services, these groups operate with minimal supervision and maintain financial independence. Their fighting capacity...
Reform Agenda in Kyiv on Slow Burn, But in Odesa, Saakashvili Already Delivers
“I come away from this visit to Odesa with a sense of optimism,” wrote US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt after his recent trip there. After I posted Pyatt’s article to my Facebook page in an attempt to diminish the growing fatigue of fellow Ukrainians over the mixed results of the new government’s reforms, angry reactions...
