A year ago, Russia launched the biggest war in Europe since World War II. Russian tanks began to enter Ukraine, whereupon many civilians took refuge in basements and others fled to the borders of their country.
Governments around the world have imposed tough sanctions on Moscow in an attempt – so far unsuccessful – to pressure President Vladimir Putin to abandon his offensive.
Despite everything, the Ukrainian armed forces have resisted, regaining control of wide swaths of occupied territory and repelling Russian attempts to advance in the east, where fierce fighting continues.
All this has caused overwhelming suffering: thousands have lost their lives and more than 8 million Ukrainians have fled abroad.
The economic effects continue to reverberate around the world, from Europe’s hasty mobilization for new energy sources to rising grain prices in Africa.
Russia invaded Ukraine after Moscow stationed troops for months along its neighbor’s borders and after last-minute diplomatic moves by Western governments to try to avoid conflict.
Russian officials have denied US warnings that an invasion was looming, while insisting they would continue to back armed separatists in eastern Ukraine and block the former Soviet republic’s attempts to join NATO.
In a televised address, Putin said that Ukraine was an integral part of Russia’s heritage. He openly questioned the country’s right to exist after it had declared itself independent three decades earlier.
The United States and its allies – suspicious of Putin’s motives after the 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and eight years of fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists – beefed up their military presence. in Eastern Europe and pledged to protect NATO members located near Ukraine from any possible aggression.
With no peace deal in sight, Ukraine and Russia are emerging from a winter stalemate determined to fight for diametrically opposed strategic goals.
Kiev wants to force Moscow out of the territory it has captured to respect internationally recognized borders, and its high-morale forces are now equipped with more powerful offensive weapons they have been receiving from the West.
The Ukrainian government faces a challenge to train operators to use the new high-tech equipment – and get its entire military up to date – in a fraction of the time normally required.
Military analysts allege that the fighting will continue until one side has gained enough of an advantage to impose conditions in the negotiations.
As the conflict enters its second year, they speculate that Ukraine could push to cut off Russian access to Crimea or that Moscow could try to overwhelm kyiv’s defenses by reopening a second front from Belarus.
ZELENSKYY PROMISES TO FIGHT UNTIL VICTORY
Ukraine’s president vowed to fight for victory in 2023 as he and other Ukrainians on Friday marked the grim one-year anniversary of the life-changing Russian invasion.
At the dawn of a day of remembrance and defiance, Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that the Ukrainians had proven “invincible” in what he called “a year of pain, sadness, faith and unity.”
“We know that 2023 will be the year of our victory!” the message added.
Ukrainians organized ceremonies and candlelight vigils in memory of their tens of thousands of dead, a number that continues to rise due to ongoing fighting, especially in the east of the country.
It was feared that Moscow could launch another round of missiles on Ukraine to add even more gloom to the day, but the air raid alarms did not go off overnight in the capital Kiev and the day began quietly.
The government however recommended that classes be held remotely and office workers were asked to work from home.
Tributes to the Ukrainian resistance followed one another abroad. The Eiffel Tower in Paris was one of the monuments that was illuminated with the colors of the Ukrainian flag, blue and yellow.
Since the early days of the war, when few expected the Ukrainian army to withstand the Russian onslaught, Zelenskyy has inspired Ukrainians to fight. He has given them hope.
Night after night, he has addressed the nation with a video posted on social media. His acting-trained voice can be soothing or forceful, rising with moral outrage as he condemns the latest Russian atrocities and insists those responsible be punished.
Zelenskyy was just 41 when he was elected president in 2019, largely on the promise that he would be the kind of anti-corruption leader he had portrayed on a popular TV show. In those early years, he had a hard time convincing Ukrainians that he was up to the job, and his approval rating dipped.
By contrast, Moscow’s troubles in Ukraine have done nothing to elevate Russian President Vladimir Putin in the eyes of the world. But it is as a wartime leader that Zelenskyy has found his place. Many now compare him to Winston Churchill, the British prime minister who led his country during World War II against attacks by Nazi Germany.
“He’s been extraordinarily good at channeling a kind of broader national spirit,” Fiona Hill, a Russia specialist at the Brookings Institution who has worked on the last three US administrations, said in an interview with The Associated Press. In part, she attributes Zelenskky’s success to his training as an actor. “Sometimes, it’s literally when we say this is the role of a lifetime, there’s an element of acting to it.”
Hill noted that Churchill “wasn’t as great a leader in peacetime as he was in war, and he was also an actor, he enjoyed amateur theater and knew he was playing a part.”
As a wartime leader, Zelenskyy began to dress like one almost immediately, swapping out his suit jackets for a full army-green wardrobe. His boyish face was filled with a dark beard. He seemed to age overnight.
Before the invasion, he looked a lot like the kindly history teacher on his TV series, “Servant of the People,” which tells the story of a man who is elected president against all odds after a student incognito tapes his full-blown tirade. of blasphemies against corruption in the government. The comedy slot, which ran from 2015 until the actual elections in the spring of 2019, was very popular.
Michael Kimmage, who worked on Russia and Ukraine policy at the US State Department under President Barack Obama, noted that part of Zelenskyy’s success in uniting the country dates back to the 2019 election, when he won with 70% of the vote and without the east-west divide of previous elections.
But to Kimmage, the leader’s “almost Churchillian characteristics” came as a surprise.
“He’s a former actor and comedian, so it’s not natural for him to play that military role. But it fit the bill,” he said. “I don’t know where he came from. Obviously, it’s a huge consequence of the war itself, but not a quality he would have seen in Zelenskyy before the war.”
In addition to uniting the country, Zelenskyy has also been very effective in getting the world to support the Ukrainians and provide them with a steady flow of money and military aid that have kept them fighting. After dozens of speeches by video conference, Zelenskyy left the country for the first time since the start of the war in December to meet US President Joe Biden at the White House and address Congress. In early February he visited London, Paris and Brussels.
