In the final hours before the Russian onslaught, a last grasp at peace. Russian troops would soon pour across Ukraine's borders and Russian missiles would fill Ukrainian skies, taking Ukrainian lives in the biggest air, sea and ground assault in Europe since the Second World War. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy still appealed, on war's brink, for reason to prevail.
, a last grasp at peace. Russian troops would soon pour across Ukraine's borders and Russian missiles would fill Ukrainian skies, taking Ukrainian lives in the biggest air, sea and ground assault in Europe since the Second World War. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy still appealed, on war's brink, for reason to prevail.
The misery of 365 days of bloodshed and the full scale of the global repercussions are difficult to sum up with mere words. Russia is more isolated than at any time since the Cold War. Western nations are banding together for Russian President Vladimir Putin 's defeat while also gambling that the ex-KGB spy won't go nuclear. China is filing away lessons that could be used against Taiwan.
But Ukraine is still here. That in itself is a stinging defeat for the Kremlin. Putin seemingly believed his forces and secret services would have turned Ukraine into a puppet state by now. The invasion plan called for resistant Ukrainian officials to be liquidated, weeded out or flipped into collaborating, according to a British think tank's study based in part on captured Russian documents.
Says Olena Sotnyk, a lawyer and former legislator: "Putin did for us something which nobody did. He helped us to become a free nation."Abroad, too, Ukraine has won hearts and minds, evidenced by the blue-and-yellow flags flying from town halls and the foreign fighters and aid workers risking -- and sometimes losing -- their lives on Ukrainian battlefields pounded by shellfire into hellscapes hauntingly reminiscent of the First World War.
In battle, Putin has increasingly had to turn to the mercenaries of the notorious Wagner Group, a private military company that has recruited fighters from prisons and tossed them into combat, with high casualty rates. Putin is also losing energy leverage over Europe as it veers away from Russian gas and most Russian oil. Russia's economy is laboring under Western sanctions. As Putin is boxed in, some fear he could lash out in new ways, perhaps resort to more nuclear saber-rattling or worse.
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