Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
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...
We Are All Ukrainians Now
My first visit to Ukraine was in February 1992 and the City of Kiev was gray, bleak and joyless as was the rest of the Soviet Union. Last month I re-visited—23 years and several other assignments later—to find a new nation of extremes. There is prosperity and there is poverty; there is peace and war; cynicism and hope; there are reformers in high...
One Year After MH17 Shootdown, Brazen Act Over Ukraine Still Poisons Atmosphere
Simon Ostrovsky will never forget the moment he learned that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 had fallen from the sky, with 298 passengers and crew aboard.”I was on a train from Kyiv to Kharkiv reading my Twitter feed, and something came down about a plane crash. Somebody said it was a Malaysian plane,” the Soviet-born US journalist...
Russian Disinformation Alienates the West from Russian Periphery
The Russian Army has released a photo of a Ukrainian tank decorated with a swastika, yet the original Reuters photograph shows no such emblem. Russia also released a photo of a Ukrainian soldier covered in Nazi tattoos, but that picture was actually taken in 2005, inside a Russian prison. Europe is revolted by any reminders of its Nazi past,...
No One Feels Safe in the New Crimea
Sixteen months after Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea, the peninsula’s human rights situation is getting progressively worse. The first wave of repression targeted mainly pro-Ukrainian activists and Crimean Tatars, while in 2015 the Kremlin’s victims have been Slavs: Ukrainians and Russians. Since early this year,...
Ukraine Bank Deputy Dmytro Solohub: Economic recovery ‘difficult, but still possible’
Dmytro Solohub admits that the Ukrainian economy is “very fragile” and faces “lots of security risks”— but says he’s doing everything he can to stabilize Ukraine’s currency, control galloping inflation, and return his country to prosperity as quickly as possible.Solohub, 37, took over in mid-March as Deputy...
Earth to Russia. Come Back to Reality.
The conflict in Ukraine highlights dangerous trends in Russian foreign policy. Russian-backed separatists and the Russian military have killed thousands of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in eastern Ukraine. It’s the starkest example of Moscow’s neo-imperialist foreign policy so far. However, even more worrisome trends have...
What Ukraine Can Learn From Poland
When the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, both Poland and Ukraine were poor. Since then, the Polish economy has boomed, while Ukrainians are poorer than they were twenty-four years ago.Poland got its reforms right in the 1990s, and now plays a significant role in Ukraine’s reform process. This is evident in the close relations between both...
