Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
Ukraine’s Invisible Refugees
Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are not the world’s only major “refugee” hosting nations.Ukraine too hosts enormous numbers of people who have had to leave their homes because of war. Millions fled their homes in 2014 after Russian operatives and tanks invaded Ukraine’s eastern regions and annexed Crimea.But they are not labeled...
Europe Funds Russian Aggression in Ukraine, Syria, and Beyond
Three-Fourths of Russian Oil Sold to Europe On October 20, the Council of the European Union will consider its strategy toward the Russian Federation. Following the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Europe faces a genuine challenge: to recognize Russian aggression against Ukraine for what it is, and to provide...
Ukraine Scores Diplomatic Breakthrough
“Security First, Elections Next,” the West Concedes After long resisting Western pressure to implement the political points in the Minsk agreements, Ukraine scored a diplomatic victory last week when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed two important resolutions.The first resolution officially defines the...
Ukraine’s New Liberals Face Tough Climb from Streets to Seats in Parliament
Ukraine now has a liberal European party, but can it become a nationwide party with real heft in parliament?On July 9, Euromaidan leaders joined forces with the Democratic Alliance party. The reinvigorated party is still preparing its program statement, but broadly it’s a liberal European party that supports free market ideas, strongly...
Will the West Ever Stand Up to Putin?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that the Normandy Four—leaders from France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine—gather on October 19 to discuss the war in Ukraine.But this is premature. Nothing will come out of this meeting without a detailed roadmap for a real ceasefire and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adherence to fully implement...
Natalie Jaresko Says $25 Billion More Needed to Make Ukraine’s Reforms Irreversible
Fatigue, Vested Interests, and Populism Threaten Ukraine’s “Longest and Most Successful” Reform Process “There’s no country in the world that has been in such dire circumstances and yet turned around the economy in such a short period of time,” said Natalie Jaresko, who served as Ukraine’s Finance Minister from December 2014 to...
What Ukraine Can Learn from Romania’s Fight against Graft
In 2015, Romania got serious about its corruption problem. DNA, its aggressive anticorruption body, indicted 1,250 public officials, including the sitting prime minister. Five other ministers, twenty-one members of parliament, and Bucharest mayor Sorin Oprescu were indicted. The agency ordered the seizure of nearly half a billion euros.Romania is...
The Other Victims of the War in Ukraine
Ukraine has long been a country associated with human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women, but recent reports of human trafficking as a consequence of the war in eastern Ukraine have brought a new urgency to this ongoing crisis. News articles tell chilling stories about slave labor camps, children’s brothels, drug couriers,...
How Ukraine Can Make Its Diplomacy Smarter
Public diplomacy has been singled out as a far-reaching mechanism for promoting Ukraine’s interests in the world. Diplomats have taken first steps in utilizing instruments from the country’s existing foreign policy tools. These include increasing person-to-person engagement, promoting economic interactions, intensifying exchange...
Washington’s Patience with Kyiv Runs Thin
Last week my colleagues Mustafa Nayyem, Svitlana Zalishchuk, and I had dozens of meetings in the United States. Our impression was disappointing. Since the resignation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Washington’s favorite Ukrainian politician), reports of further corruption, and the lack of progress in resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the...
