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The consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for international security – NATO and beyond

• Robert Pszczel
• 07 July 2022

February 24, 2022, is likely to engrave itself on the history template of the contemporary world. Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified and barbaric invasion of Ukraine is not only a manifestation of a huge security danger that has shattered peace in Europe.

More structurally, it has broken the entire security architecture built patiently on the continent over many decades, including international commitments agreed in the last 30 years. As the top UK general recently observed, it is dangerous to assume that the war on Ukraine is a limited conflict. This could be “ our 1937 moment “, and everything possible must be done in order to stop territorial expansion by force, thereby averting a war similar to the one that ravaged Europe 80 years ago. Mobilising our resources must start today.

The magnitude of damage resulting from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is immense and still increasing. Whole cities – like Mariupol – are being razed to the ground. Pictured: City of Mariupol © CNN

This is also a war against the West

The magnitude of damage is immense and still increasing. Ukrainians (military and civilians alike) are being killed simply because they are Ukrainians. Whole cities – like Mariupol – are being razed to the ground. Evident atrocities fitting the criteria of war crimes are being perpetrated and accompanied by genocidal talk on Russian state TV. Hundreds of thousands of people, including children, have been forcefully deported to Russia. Over six million (at the time of writing) have had to flee Ukraine; many more have been internally displaced. Hospitals, infrastructure, cultural treasures, private homes and industrial centres are either destroyed or pillaged , with stolen goods being sent to Russia in an organised manner.

The suffering of Ukraine presents a moral challenge to Europe and the world. Human rights and the UN Charter have been trampled upon and our values mocked. Indifference is simply not an option. As convincingly explained by Nicholas Tenzer: this is a war against the West too.

According to its own terminology, Putin’s regime has chosen confrontation with the “collective West”, irrespective of the costs for Russia itself. All efforts comprising security and confidence-building measures, or institutional arrangements designed to preserve peace, suddenly look very fragile when faced with blunt force. After many months of Moscow engaging in sham dialogue and blatantly lying to other countries and institutions, including NATO and the OSCE, all trust has been eroded. Moreover, by creating economic shocks in the energy markets and weaponising famine as a political instrument, Russia has further globalised the consequences of its war.

Russian threats

Russia has also purposefully raised the level of risk for the possible use of nuclear weapons, the main goal primarily being to discourage Western Allies from offering military support to Ukraine and to instil fear in decision-makers. A long-held taboo that made an actual application of nuclear force unthinkable has been verbally discarded. While many experts calculate that risk to be low - not higher than five percent - Putin and his aides have chosen to abandon the rational caution exercised by the majority of his Soviet predecessors. Compared to Cold War practice, today, Kremlin propagandists and officials engage in highly irresponsible rhetoric advocating for the use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal against Ukraine, and possibly even against NATO states. This is backed by exercises (at least two this year) openly testing the Russian military’s ability to fire nuclear warheads at Western targets and protect Russia from possible counter-strikes. The Russian president has even shown his willingness to bring Belarus into the nuclear equation. Such brinkmanship has contributed to the return of nuclear arms into the power competition on a global stage.

Russia tests nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat on 20 April 2022. © Reuters

With or without a nuclear threat dimension, Russia’s neighbours already have valid reasons to fear the Russian predator. They feel that, if not stopped in and by Ukraine, Putin may entertain aggression against other territories. The historic decision by both Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership points to the gravity of this threat. Small countries, such as Moldova and Georgia, but also Moscow’s formal allies such as Kazakhstan, may fear becoming Putin’s next target. The Kremlin has not made any attempt to assuage these fears, but has instead amplified them via direct menaces, propaganda and intimidation levers. Latest examples include curtailing gas supplies for political reasons, violating the airspace of a NATO country, threatening Lithuania, and using economic blackmail against Collective Security Treaty Organization member, Kazakhstan .

International response – good and not so good news

NATO and the European Union have, to a large extent, responded effectively in the first months of the war. US leadership has once again proven essential in successfully mobilising international efforts, especially in coordinating military support to Ukraine. NATO’s response to the war, balancing increasingly strong support to Ukraine with a justified reluctance to avoid open conflict with Russia, has been more or less vindicated. The majority of European countries turned to the tried and tested protective security umbrella of NATO, backed by American military capabilities. The G7 and EU have proven agile in tightening sanctions.

But, as the aggression continues, with Russia concentrating its efforts on gaining control of eastern and southern Ukraine via a war of attrition, Western unity is being tested. Divergent interpretations over sanctions that affect the transport of prohibited goods to Kaliningrad illustrate this problem.

The United Nations and the OSCE have not been able to offer meaningful responses, mainly due to the paralysing effect of Russia’s veto. Moreover, solidarity with Ukraine is not yet universal among all UN members.

Russia's long-term prospects are dim, but the threat is present

The myth of the invincible Russian military machine has evaporated in the space of a few weeks. The initial goals of the invasion have clearly not been achieved. Russian forces had to withdraw from the vicinity of Kyiv and were beaten off in many other locations. Ukrainian bravery and excellent use of limited resources (reinforced by foreign assistance) have so far proven a strong match against the badly led, poorly motivated and organised opponent, who are also experiencing logistic and technical problems, like faulty equipment. Corruption, a disease at the heart of the Russian state, displayed itself on a grand scale in the conduct of the military operation. Russia’s human losses are enormous and, in spite of censorship, becoming known to the Russian public.

The West can attempt to facilitate the export of grain from Ukraine in order to undermine the Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Picture © Euromaidan Press

After more than four months of fighting, it is Russia that is experiencing manpower shortages. Fearing protests, the Kremlin is reluctant to call for mobilisation and is forced to take extraordinary steps (e.g. extending the age limit for volunteers ready to join the war), opting for a covert form of recruitment, like through the use of reservists. Numerous cases of conscription offices being set on fire in Russia suggest strongly that many young people are opposed to being sent to the frontlines in Ukraine. Almost four million Russians have travelled away from Russia so far in 2022, many choosing not to return for the time being. It is the largest such exodus since the Bolshevik revolution and could result in an enormous country-wide brain drain; something that is already being experienced in the IT sector.

Furthermore, the war has proven costly. On 27 May, Finance Minister Siluanov admitted that “money, huge resources are needed for the special operation”. He also confirmed that 8 trillion roubles (USD $120b) were required for the stimulus budget. Sanctions are starting to bite and will set the Russian economy - which is not able to produce a huge range of goods without foreign technology or parts – back for decades. Overall, unemployment is set to rise while GDP is unlikely to grow.

Putin has turned Russia into an international pariah and the country will not recover its reputation for a long time. In spite of the totalitarian nature of the Russian political system today, some signs of dissent (even amongst high ranking diplomats ) show a growing recognition of these facts. As one astute Russian expert put it, Putin has “amputated Russia’s future”. Russia is bound to be a weaker, less influential actor for the foreseeable future.

But barring Putin’s sudden departure - which would trigger a political transformation in Moscow - Russia will still present a dangerous threat to security in Europe. The regime, led by a delusional and ageing dictator, is prone to irrational decision-making. But the ruthless conduct of the military campaign (e.g. indiscriminate use of blanket shelling) means that even incompetent Russian forces can achieve gains against the Ukrainian military , though it is being modernised at record pace.

A transformative Madrid Summit, but the clock is ticking

Ukraine’s ability to contain Russian aggression will shape the security environment for years to come. At its Summit in Madrid in June 2022, NATO recognised this and offered an upgraded package of support. The volume and speed with which more sophisticated weapons systems (including heavy artillery, missile systems, armoured vehicles, and air defence systems) are supplied to Ukraine in the coming weeks will be decisive in preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine’s defences. The onus is on individual Allies to ensure such help now.

Norwegian troops arrive to reinforce NATO Enhanced Forward Presence in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 27 February 2022. © Reuters

Special funding assistance will be required for long-term training and the modernisation of Ukrainian forces, de facto bringing them to NATO standards. This is necessary, as Ukrainian weapon stocks composed of Soviet-standards equipment are depleted, and availability of such arms outside Ukraine is limited too. Crowdfunding military equipment for Ukraine – already successful in Lithuania – shows that the general international public is sympathetic and wants to play its part in this process. To help Kyiv to counterbalance Russia’s size advantages and scorched earth tactics, Allies should consider more military exercises to show NATO’s readiness and strength. Creative solutions are also quickly needed to undermine the Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, facilitating the export of grain.

While the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 – though effectively torn to shreds by Russia – was not formally revoked at the Summit, any self-restrictions which NATO took on as part of the agreement should now be considered null and void. Crucially, Allies have finally attributed responsibility where it lies, calling Russia “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security” in their new Strategic Concept.

Putin’s war has not yet tested the credibility of NATO’s Article 5 collective defence guarantees. Thus far, the very existence of Article 5, coupled with NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (which now includes more than 40 000 forces under direct NATO’s operational command), have offered sufficient deterrence. But Putin’s increasingly irrational behaviour together with Moscow’s readiness to use the most destructive missiles and weapons systems against foreign territory targets (something practiced in Syria) in the immediate vicinity of NATO territory creates a new reality. Moscow has shown its readiness to use indiscriminate force for no justifiable military reasons and to engage in war crimes, all while Putin openly discusses the reclamation of lands held by tsarist Russia. Not surprisingly, NATO Allies bordering Russia are concerned by the potential loss – even temporary - of parts of their territory, and having seen the obliteration of Mariupol and Kharkiv, have become alarmed by direct missile threats to their cities and critical infrastructure.

Sanctions are starting to impact the Russian economy. Pictured: Russians queue up to withdraw cash from an ATM in St Petersburg. © Reuters

A more ruthless form of deterrence, by denial rather than punishment, based on a beefed-up forward defence seems the only appropriate response. The new NATO Strategic Concept , which was adopted in Madrid on 29 June, explicitly takes NATO in that direction (para. 21). Substantial and persistent military presence, backed by the prepositioning of equipment and strategic pre-assigning of combat forces is now part of the new NATO Force Model. The goal of massively increasing the availability of troops at high readiness is essential for effective deterrence. But concrete pledges of national contributions, like those announced by US President Biden on 29 June, must follow quickly from all Allies.

The credibility of collective defence will also depend on the quick implementation of already-announced pledges for increased defence spending and the prioritisation of defence planning efforts based on the scenario of large-scale conflict in Europe. In this context, appropriate stockpiles of military equipment are essential. As current levels are eminently insufficient, procurement practices and defence industry production capacity must be adapted, and stocks augmented quickly.

Paragraphs 28 and 29 of the new Strategic Concept leave no ambiguity on the continued role played by nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of Allied security. But to disable the corrosive effect of Moscow’s nuclear blackmail against Allies, a more robust declaratory nuclear policy by NATO is in order. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons against targets in Ukraine – however improbable - cannot be ruled out. Allies should thus consider, as a matter of urgency, persuasive signalling to Russia about possible conventional military responses (e.g. a disabling of Russian military targets in the Black Sea) that would come as a result of such acts. Only the certainty of retaliation can dissuade the Kremlin from seriously contemplating such an option.

Concrete decisions will matter more than any new organisational organigrams, and sophisticated plans or strategies are valuable only as long as they are made real. Russia has started to relish its role as a predator, and it is using brutal force to achieve its imperialist goals. Even weakened, Russia remains capable of inflicting heavy damage upon others. Only strong deterrence and credible force will be able to stop it. Counter-intuitively, preparing for a possible war with Russia is the best approach to prevent it.

Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Heads of State and Government – NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain, 29 June 2022. © NATO

The collective West (and specifically NATO) can count on its likely ability to contain an aggressive Russia, at least in the long run. But Ukraine’s defeat of the aggressor is the indispensable goal in this context as it would severely limit Russia’s ability to attack other countries, provide time to augment collective defence and consolidate international unity against aggression. Madrid Summit decisions have supplied key elements of the required strategy. There is no time to lose in implementing them.

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• 9 big questions about Russia’s war in Ukraine, answered

Addressing some of the most pressing questions of the whole war, from how it started to how it might end.

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The Russian war in Ukraine has proven itself to be one of the most consequential political events of our time — and one of the most confusing.

From the outset, Russia’s decision to invade was hard to understand; it seemed at odds with what most experts saw as Russia’s strategic interests. As the war has progressed, the widely predicted Russian victory has failed to emerge as Ukrainian fighters have repeatedly fended off attacks from a vastly superior force. Around the world, from Washington to Berlin to Beijing, global powers have reacted in striking and even historically unprecedented fashion.

What follows is an attempt to make sense of all of this: to tackle the biggest questions everyone is asking about the war. It is a comprehensive guide to understanding what is happening in Ukraine and why it matters.

1) Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

In a televised speech announcing Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24 , Russian President Vladimir Putin said the invasion was designed to stop a “genocide” perpetrated by “the Kyiv regime” — and ultimately to achieve “the demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine.”

Though the claims of genocide and Nazi rule in Kyiv were transparently false , the rhetoric revealed Putin’s maximalist war aims: regime change (“de-Nazification”) and the elimination of Ukraine’s status as a sovereign state outside of Russian control (“demilitarization”). Why he would want to do this is a more complex story, one that emerges out of the very long arc of Russian-Ukrainian relations.

Ukraine and Russia have significant, deep, and longstanding cultural and historical ties; both date their political origins back to the ninth-century Slavic kingdom of Kievan Rus. But these ties do not make them historically identical, as Putin has repeatedly claimed in his public rhetoric. Since the rise of the modern Ukrainian national movement in the mid- to late-19th century , Russian rule in Ukraine — in both the czarist and Soviet periods — increasingly came to resemble that of an imperial power governing an unwilling colony .

Russian imperial rule ended in 1991 when 92 percent of Ukrainians voted in a national referendum to secede from the decaying Soviet Union. Almost immediately afterward , political scientists and regional experts began warning that the Russian-Ukrainian border would be a flashpoint, predicting that internal divides between the more pro-European population of western Ukraine and relatively more pro-Russian east , contested territory like the Crimean Peninsula , and Russian desire to reestablish control over its wayward vassal could all lead to conflict between the new neighbors.

It took about 20 years for these predictions to be proven right. In late 2013, Ukrainians took to the streets to protest the authoritarian and pro-Russian tilt of incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych, forcing his resignation on February 22, 2014. Five days later, the Russian military swiftly seized control of Crimea and declared it Russian territory, a brazenly illegal move that a majority of Crimeans nonetheless seemed to welcome . Pro-Russia protests in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine gave way to a violent rebellion — one stoked and armed by the Kremlin , and backed by disguised Russian troops .

The Ukrainian uprising against Yanukovych — called the “Euromaidan” movement because they were pro-EU protests that most prominently took place in Kyiv’s Maidan square — represented to Russia a threat not just to its influence over Ukraine but to the very survival of Putin’s regime. In Putin’s mind, Euromaidan was a Western-sponsored plot to overthrow a Kremlin ally, part of a broader plan to undermine Russia itself that included NATO’s post-Cold War expansions to the east.

“We understand what is happening; we understand that [the protests] were aimed against Ukraine and Russia and against Eurasian integration,” he said in a March 2014 speech on the annexation of Crimea. “With Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line.”

Beneath this rhetoric, according to experts on Russia, lies a deeper unstated fear: that his regime might fall prey to a similar protest movement . Ukraine could not succeed, in his view, because it might create a pro-Western model for Russians to emulate — one that the United States might eventually try to covertly export to Moscow. This was a central part of his thinking in 2014 , and it remains so today.

“He sees CIA agents behind every anti-Russian political movement,” says Seva Gunitsky, a political scientist who studies Russia at the University of Toronto. “He thinks the West wants to subvert his regime the way they did in Ukraine.”

Beginning in March 2021, Russian forces began deploying to the Ukrainian border in larger and larger numbers. Putin’s nationalist rhetoric became more aggressive: In July 2021, the Russian president published a 5,000-word essay arguing that Ukrainian nationalism was a fiction, that the country was historically always part of Russia, and that a pro-Western Ukraine posed an existential threat to the Russian nation.

“The formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us,” as he put it in his 2021 essay .

Why Putin decided that merely seizing part of Ukraine was no longer enough remains a matter of significant debate among experts. One theory, advanced by Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar , is that pandemic-induced isolation drove him to an extreme ideological place.

But while the immediate cause of Putin’s shift on Ukraine is not clear, the nature of that shift is. His longtime belief in the urgency of restoring Russia’s greatness curdled into a neo-imperial desire to bring Ukraine back under direct Russian control. And in Russia, where Putin rules basically unchecked, that meant a full-scale war.

2) Who is winning the war?

On paper , Russia’s military vastly outstrips Ukraine’s. Russia spends over 10 times as much on defense annually as Ukraine; the Russian military has a little under three times as much artillery as Ukraine and roughly 10 times as many fixed-wing aircraft. As a result, the general pre-invasion view was that Russia would easily win a conventional war. In early February, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley told members of Congress that Kyiv, the capital, could fall within 72 hours of a Russian invasion .

But that’s not how things have played out . A month into the invasion, Ukrainians still hold Kyiv. Russia has made some gains, especially in the east and south, but the consensus view among military experts is that Ukraine’s defenses have held stoutly — to the point where Ukrainians have been able to launch counteroffensives .

The initial Russian plan reportedly operated under the assumption that a swift march on Kyiv would meet only token resistance. Putin “actually really thought this would be a ‘special military operation’: They would be done in a few days, and it wouldn’t be a real war,” says Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the CNA think tank.

This plan fell apart within the first 48 hours of the war when early operations like an airborne assault on the Hostomel airport ended in disaster , forcing Russian generals to develop a new strategy on the fly. What they came up with — massive artillery bombardments and attempts to encircle and besiege Ukraine’s major cities — was more effective (and more brutal). The Russians made some inroads into Ukrainian territory, especially in the south, where they have laid siege to Mariupol and taken Kherson and Melitopol.

But these Russian advances are a bit misleading. Ukraine, Kofman explains, made the tactical decision to trade “space for time” : to withdraw strategically rather than fight for every inch of Ukrainian land, confronting the Russians on the territory and at the time of their choosing.

As the fighting continued, the nature of the Ukrainian choice became clearer. Instead of getting into pitched large-scale battles with Russians on open terrain, where Russia’s numerical advantages would prove decisive, the Ukrainians instead decided to engage in a series of smaller-scale clashes .

Ukrainian forces have bogged down Russian units in towns and smaller cities ; street-to-street combat favors defenders who can use their superior knowledge of the city’s geography to hide and conduct ambushes. They have attacked isolated and exposed Russian units traveling on open roads. They have repeatedly raided poorly protected supply lines.

This approach has proven remarkably effective. By mid-March, Western intelligence agencies and open source analysts concluded that the Ukrainians had successfully managed to stall the Russian invasion. The Russian military all but openly recognized this reality in a late March briefing, in which top generals implausibly claimed they never intended to take Kyiv and were always focused on making territorial gains in the east.

“The initial Russian campaign to invade and conquer Ukraine is culminating without achieving its objectives — it is being defeated, in other words,” military scholar Frederick Kagan wrote in a March 22 brief for the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank.

Currently, Ukrainian forces are on the offensive. They have pushed the Russians farther from Kyiv , with some reports suggesting they have retaken the suburb of Irpin and forced Russia to withdraw some of its forces from the area in a tacit admission of defeat. In the south, Ukrainian forces are contesting Russian control over Kherson .

And throughout the fighting, Russian casualties have been horrifically high.

It’s hard to get accurate information in a war zone, but one of the more authoritative estimates of Russian war dead — from the US Defense Department — concludes that over 7,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the first three weeks of fighting, a figure about three times as large as the total US service members dead in all 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. A separate NATO estimate puts that at the low end, estimating between 7,000 and 15,000 Russians killed in action and as many as 40,000 total losses (including injuries, captures, and desertions). Seven Russian generals have been reported killed in the fighting, and materiel losses — ranging from armor to aircraft — have been enormous. (Russia puts its death toll at more than 1,300 soldiers, which is almost certainly a significant undercount.)

This all does not mean that a Russian victory is impossible. Any number of things, ranging from Russian reinforcements to the fall of besieged Mariupol, could give the war effort new life.

It does, however, mean that what Russia is doing right now hasn’t worked.

“If the point is just to wreak havoc, then they’re doing fine. But if the point is to wreak havoc and thus advance further — be able to hold more territory — they’re not doing fine,” says Olga Oliker, the program director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group.

3) Why is Russia’s military performing so poorly?

Russia’s invasion has gone awry for two basic reasons: Its military wasn’t ready to fight a war like this, and the Ukrainians have put up a much stronger defense than anyone expected.

Russia’s problems begin with Putin’s unrealistic invasion plan. But even after the Russian high command adjusted its strategy, other flaws in the army remained.

“We’re seeing a country militarily implode,” says Robert Farley, a professor who studies air power at the University of Kentucky.

One of the biggest and most noticeable issues has been rickety logistics. Some of the most famous images of the war have been of Russian armored vehicles parked on Ukrainian roads, seemingly out of gas and unable to advance. The Russian forces have proven to be underequipped and badly supplied, encountering problems ranging from poor communications to inadequate tires .

Part of the reason is a lack of sufficient preparation. Per Kofman, the Russian military simply “wasn’t organized for this kind of war” — meaning, the conquest of Europe’s second-largest country by area. Another part of it is corruption in the Russian procurement system. Graft in Russia is less a bug in its political system than a feature; one way the Kremlin maintains the loyalty of its elite is by allowing them to profit off of government activity . Military procurement is no exception to this pattern of widespread corruption, and it has led to troops having substandard access to vital supplies .

The same lack of preparation has plagued Russia’s air force . Despite outnumbering the Ukrainian air force by roughly 10 times, the Russians have failed to establish air superiority: Ukraine’s planes are still flying and its air defenses mostly remain in place .

Perhaps most importantly, close observers of the war believe Russians are suffering from poor morale. Because Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine was kept secret from the vast majority of Russians, the government had a limited ability to lay a propaganda groundwork that would get their soldiers motivated to fight. The current Russian force has little sense of what they’re fighting for or why — and are waging war against a country with which they have religious, ethnic, historical, and potentially even familial ties. In a military that has long had systemic morale problems, that’s a recipe for battlefield disaster.

“Russian morale was incredibly low BEFORE the war broke out. Brutal hazing in the military, second-class (or worse) status by its conscript soldiers, ethnic divisions, corruption, you name it: the Russian Army was not prepared to fight this war,” Jason Lyall, a Dartmouth political scientist who studies morale, explains via email. “High rates of abandoned or captured equipment, reports of sabotaged equipment, and large numbers of soldiers deserting (or simply camping out in the forest) are all products of low morale.”

The contrast with the Ukrainians couldn’t be starker. They are defending their homes and their families from an unprovoked invasion, led by a charismatic leader who has made a personal stand in Kyiv. Ukrainian high morale is a key reason, in addition to advanced Western armaments, that the defenders have dramatically outperformed expectations.

“Having spent a chunk of my professional career [working] with the Ukrainians, nobody, myself included and themselves included, had all that high an estimation of their military capacity,” Oliker says.

Again, none of this will necessarily remain the case throughout the war. Morale can shift with battlefield developments. And even if Russian morale remains low, it’s still possible for them to win — though they’re more likely to do so in a brutally ugly fashion.

4) What has the war meant for ordinary Ukrainians?

As the fighting has dragged on, Russia has gravitated toward tactics that, by design, hurt civilians. Most notably, Russia has attempted to lay siege to Ukraine’s cities, cutting off supply and escape routes while bombarding them with artillery. The purpose of the strategy is to wear down the Ukrainian defenders’ willingness to fight, including by inflicting mass pain on the civilian populations.

The result has been nightmarish: an astonishing outflow of Ukrainian refugees and tremendous suffering for many of those who were unwilling or unable to leave.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , more than 3.8 million Ukrainians fled the country between February 24 and March 27. That’s about 8.8 percent of Ukraine’s total population — in proportional terms, the rough equivalent of the entire population of Texas being forced to flee the United States.

Another point of comparison: In 2015, four years into the Syrian civil war and the height of the global refugee crisis, there were a little more than 4 million Syrian refugees living in nearby countries . The Ukraine war has produced a similarly sized exodus in just a month, leading to truly massive refugee flows to its European neighbors. Poland, the primary destination of Ukrainian refugees, is currently housing over 2.3 million Ukrainians, a figure larger than the entire population of Warsaw, its capital and largest city.

For those civilians who have been unable to flee, the situation is dire. There are no reliable estimates of death totals; a March 27 UN estimate puts the figure at 1,119 but cautions that “the actual figures are considerably higher [because] the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”

The UN assessment does not blame one side or the other for these deaths, but does note that “most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and airstrikes.” It is the Russians, primarily, who are using these sorts of weapons in populated areas; Human Rights Watch has announced that there are “early signs of war crimes” being committed by Russian soldiers in these kinds of attacks, and President Joe Biden has personally labeled Putin a “war criminal.”

Nowhere is this devastation more visible than the southern city of Mariupol, the largest Ukrainian population center to which Russia has laid siege. Aerial footage of the city published by the Guardian in late March reveals entire blocks demolished by Russian bombardment:

In mid-March, three Associated Press journalists — the last international reporters in the city before they too were evacuated — managed to file a dispatch describing life on the ground. They reported a death total of 2,500 but cautioned that “many bodies can’t be counted because of the endless shelling .” The situation is impossibly dire:

Airstrikes and shells have hit the maternity hospital, the fire department, homes, a church, a field outside a school. For the estimated hundreds of thousands who remain, there is quite simply nowhere to go. The surrounding roads are mined and the port blocked. Food is running out, and the Russians have stopped humanitarian attempts to bring it in. Electricity is mostly gone and water is sparse, with residents melting snow to drink. Some parents have even left their newborns at the hospital, perhaps hoping to give them a chance at life in the one place with decent electricity and water.

The battlefield failures of the Russian military have raised questions about its competence in difficult block-to-block fighting; Farley, the Kentucky professor, says, “This Russian army does not look like it can conduct serious [urban warfare].” As a result, taking Ukrainian cities means besieging them — starving them out, destroying their will to fight, and only moving into the city proper after its population is unwilling to resist or outright incapable of putting up a fight.

5) What do Russians think about the war?

Vladimir Putin’s government has ramped up its already repressive policies during the Ukraine conflict, shuttering independent media outlets and blocking access to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram . It’s now extremely difficult to get a sense of what either ordinary Russians or the country’s elite think about the war, as criticizing it could lead to a lengthy stint in prison.

But despite this opacity, expert Russia watchers have developed a broad idea of what’s going on there. The war has stirred up some opposition and anti-Putin sentiment, but it has been confined to a minority who are unlikely to change Putin’s mind, let alone topple him.

The bulk of the Russian public was no more prepared for war than the bulk of the Russian military — in fact, probably less so. After Putin announced the launch of his “special military operation” in Ukraine on national television, there was a surprising amount of criticism from high-profile Russians — figures ranging from billionaires to athletes to social media influencers. One Russian journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova, bravely ran into the background of a government broadcast while holding an antiwar sign.

“It is unprecedented to see oligarchs, other elected officials, and other powerful people in society publicly speaking out against the war,” says Alexis Lerner, a scholar of dissent in Russia at the US Naval Academy.

There have also been antiwar rallies in dozens of Russian cities. How many have participated in these rallies is hard to say, but the human rights group OVD-Info estimates that over 15,000 Russians have been arrested at the events since the war began.

Could these eruptions of antiwar sentiment at the elite and mass public level suggest a coming coup or revolution against the Putin regime? Experts caution that these events remain quite unlikely.

Putin has done an effective job engaging in what political scientists call “coup-proofing.” He has put in barriers — from seeding the military with counterintelligence officers to splitting up the state security services into different groups led by trusted allies — that make it quite difficult for anyone in his government to successfully move against him.

“Putin has prepared for this eventuality for a long time and has taken a lot of concerted actions to make sure he’s not vulnerable,” says Adam Casey, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan who studies the history of coups in Russia and the former communist bloc.

Similarly, turning the antiwar protests into a full-blown influential movement is a very tall order.

“It is hard to organize sustained collective protest in Russia,” notes Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard who studies protest movements . “Putin’s government has criminalized many forms of protests, and has shut down or restricted the activities of groups, movements, and media outlets perceived to be in opposition or associated with the West.”

Underpinning it all is tight government control of the information environment. Most Russians get their news from government-run media , which has been serving up a steady diet of pro-war content. Many of them appear to genuinely believe what they hear: One independent opinion poll found that 58 percent of Russians supported the war to at least some degree.

Prior to the war, Putin also appeared to be a genuinely popular figure in Russia. The elite depend on him for their position and fortune; many citizens see him as the man who saved Russia from the chaos of the immediate post-Communist period. A disastrous war might end up changing that, but the odds that even a sustained drop in his support translates into a coup or revolution remain low indeed.

6) What is the US role in the conflict?

The war remains, for the moment, a conflict between Ukraine and Russia. But the United States is the most important third party, using a number of powerful tools — short of direct military intervention — to aid the Ukrainian cause.

Any serious assessment of US involvement needs to start in the post-Cold War 1990s , when the US and its NATO allies made the decision to open alliance membership to former communist states.

Many of these countries, wary of once again being put under the Russian boot, clamored to join the alliance, which commits all involved countries to defend any member-state in the event of an attack. In 2008, NATO officially announced that Georgia and Ukraine — two former Soviet republics right on Russia’s doorstep — “ will become members of NATO ” at an unspecified future date. This infuriated the Russians, who saw NATO expansion as a direct threat to their own security.

There is no doubt that NATO expansion helped create some of the background conditions under which the current conflict became thinkable, generally pushing Putin’s foreign policy in a more anti-Western direction. Some experts see it as one of the key causes of his decision to attack Ukraine — but others strongly disagree, noting that NATO membership for Ukraine was already basically off the table before the war and that Russia’s declared war aims went far beyond simply blocking Ukraine’s NATO bid .

“NATO expansion was deeply unpopular in Russia. [But] Putin did not invade because of NATO expansion,” says Yoshiko Herrera, a Russia expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Regardless of where one falls on that debate, US policy during the conflict has been exceptionally clear: support the Ukrainians with massive amounts of military assistance while putting pressure on Putin to back down by organizing an unprecedented array of international economic sanctions.

On the military side, weapons systems manufactured and provided by the US and Europe have played a vital role in blunting Russia’s advance. The Javelin anti-tank missile system, for example, is a lightweight American-made launcher that allows one or two infantry soldiers to take out a tank . Javelins have given the outgunned Ukrainians a fighting chance against Russian armor, becoming a popular symbol in the process .

Sanctions have proven similarly devastating in the economic realm .

The international punishments have been extremely broad, ranging from removing key Russian banks from the SWIFT global transaction system to a US ban on Russian oil imports to restrictions on doing business with particular members of the Russian elite . Freezing the assets of Russia’s central bank has proven to be a particularly damaging tool, wrecking Russia’s ability to deal with the collapse in the value of the ruble, its currency. As a result, the Russian economy is projected to contract by 15 percent this year ; mass unemployment looms .

There is more America can do, particularly when it comes to fulfilling Ukrainian requests for new fighter jets. In March, Washington rejected a Polish plan to transfer MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine via a US Air Force base in Germany, arguing that it could be too provocative.

But the MiG-29 incident is more the exception than it is the rule. On the whole, the United States has been strikingly willing to take aggressive steps to punish Moscow and aid Kyiv’s war effort.

7) How is the rest of the world responding to Russia’s actions?

On the surface, the world appears to be fairly united behind the Ukrainian cause. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the Russian invasion by a whopping 141-5 margin (with 35 abstentions). But the UN vote conceals a great deal of disagreement, especially among the world’s largest and most influential countries — divergences that don’t always fall neatly along democracy-versus-autocracy lines.

The most aggressive anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian positions can, perhaps unsurprisingly, be found in Europe and the broader West. EU and NATO members, with the partial exceptions of Hungary and Turkey , have strongly supported the Ukrainian war effort and implemented punishing sanctions on Russia (a major trading partner). It’s the strongest show of European unity since the Cold War, one that many observers see as a sign that Putin’s invasion has already backfired.

Germany, which has important trade ties with Russia and a post-World War II tradition of pacifism, is perhaps the most striking case. Nearly overnight, the Russian invasion convinced center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz to support rearmament , introducing a proposal to more than triple Germany’s defense budget that’s widely backed by the German public.

“It’s really revolutionary,” Sophia Besch, a Berlin-based senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told my colleague Jen Kirby . “Scholz, in his speech, did away with and overturned so many of what we thought were certainties of German defense policy.”

Though Scholz has refused to outright ban Russian oil and gas imports, he has blocked the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and committed to a long-term strategy of weaning Germany off of Russian energy. All signs point to Russia waking a sleeping giant — of creating a powerful military and economic enemy in the heart of the European continent.

China, by contrast, has been the most pro-Russia of the major global powers.

The two countries, bound by shared animus toward a US-dominated world order, have grown increasingly close in recent years. Chinese propaganda has largely toed the Russian line on the Ukraine war. US intelligence, which has been remarkably accurate during the crisis, believes that Russia has requested military and financial assistance from Beijing — which hasn’t been provided yet but may well be forthcoming.

That said, it’s possible to overstate the degree to which China has taken the Russian side. Beijing has a strong stated commitment to state sovereignty — the bedrock of its position on Taiwan is that the island is actually Chinese territory — which makes a full-throated backing of the invasion ideologically awkward . There’s a notable amount of debate among Chinese policy experts and in the public , with some analysts publicly advocating that Beijing adopt a more neutral line on the conflict.

Most other countries around the world fall somewhere on the spectrum between the West and China. Outside of Europe, only a handful of mostly pro-American states — like South Korea, Japan, and Australia — have joined the sanctions regime. The majority of countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America do not support the invasion, but won’t do very much to punish Russia for it either.

India is perhaps the most interesting country in this category. A rising Asian democracy that has violently clashed with China in the very recent past , it has good reasons to present itself as an American partner in the defense of freedom. Yet India also depends heavily on Russian-made weapons for its own defense and hopes to use its relationship with Russia to limit the Moscow-Beijing partnership. It’s also worth noting that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has strong autocratic inclinations .

The result of all of this is a balancing act reminiscent of India’s Cold War approach of “non-alignment” : refusing to side with either the Russian or American positions while attempting to maintain decent relations with both . India’s perceptions of its strategic interests, more than ideological views about democracy, appear to be shaping its response to the war — as seems to be the case with quite a few countries around the world.

8) Could this turn into World War III?

The basic, scary answer to this question is yes: The invasion of Ukraine has put us at the greatest risk of a NATO-Russia war in decades.

The somewhat more comforting and nuanced answer is that the absolute risk remains relatively low so long as there is no direct NATO involvement in the conflict, which the Biden administration has repeatedly ruled out . Though Biden said “this man [Putin] cannot remain in power” in a late March speech, both White House officials and the president himself stressed afterward that the US policy was not regime change in Moscow.

“Things are stable in a nuclear sense right now,” says Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear weapons at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “The minute NATO gets involved, the scope of the war widens.”

In theory, US and NATO military assistance to Ukraine could open the door to escalation: Russia could attack a military depot in Poland containing weapons bound for Ukraine, for instance. But in practice, it’s unlikely: The Russians don’t appear to want a wider war with NATO that risks nuclear escalation, and so have avoided cross-border strikes even when it might destroy supply shipments bound for Ukraine.

In early March, the US Department of Defense opened a direct line of communication with its Russian peers in order to avoid any kind of accidental conflict. It’s not clear how well this is working — some reporting suggests the Russians aren’t answering American calls — but there is a long history of effective dialogue between rivals who are fighting each other through proxy forces.

“States often cooperate to keep limits on their wars even as they fight one another clandestinely,” Lyall, the Dartmouth professor, tells me. “While there’s always a risk of unintended escalation, historical examples like Vietnam, Afghanistan (1980s), Afghanistan again (post-2001), and Syria show that wars can be fought ‘within bounds.’”

If the United States and NATO heed the call of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to impose a so-called “no-fly zone” over Ukrainian skies, the situation changes dramatically. No-fly zones are commitments to patrol and, if necessary, shoot down military aircraft that fly in the declared area, generally for the purpose of protecting civilians. In Ukraine, that would mean the US and its NATO allies sending in jets to patrol Ukraine’s skies — and being willing to shoot down any Russian planes that enter protected airspace. From there, the risks of a nuclear conflict become terrifyingly high.

Russia recognizes its inferiority to NATO in conventional terms; its military doctrine has long envisioned the use of nuclear weapons in a war with the Western alliance . In his speech declaring war on Ukraine, Putin all but openly vowed that any international intervention in the conflict would trigger nuclear retaliation.

“To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,” the Russian president said. “I hope you hear me.”

The Biden administration is taking these threats seriously. Much as the Kremlin hasn’t struck NATO supply missions to Ukraine, the White House has flatly rejected a no-fly zone or any other kind of direct military intervention.

“We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine,” Biden said on March 11 . “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”

This does not mean the risk of a wider war is zero . Accidents happen, and countries can be dragged into war against their leaders’ best judgment. Political positions and risk calculi can also change: If Russia starts losing badly and uses smaller nukes on Ukrainian forces (called “tactical” nuclear weapons), Biden would likely feel the need to respond in some fairly aggressive way. Much depends on Washington and Moscow continuing to show a certain level of restraint.

9) How could the war end?

Wars do not typically end with the total defeat of one side or the other. More commonly, there’s some kind of negotiated settlement — either a ceasefire or more permanent peace treaty — where the two sides agree to stop fighting under a set of mutually agreeable terms.

It is possible that the Ukraine conflict turns out to be an exception: that Russian morale collapses completely, leading to utter battlefield defeat, or that Russia inflicts so much pain that Kyiv collapses. But most analysts believe that neither of these is especially likely given the way the war has played out to date.

“No matter how much military firepower they pour into it, [the Russians] are not going to be able to achieve regime change or some of their maximalist aims,” Kofman, of the CNA think tank, declares.

A negotiated settlement is the most likely way the conflict ends. Peace negotiations between the two sides are ongoing, and some reporting suggests they’re bearing fruit. On March 28, the Financial Times reported significant progress on a draft agreement covering issues ranging from Ukrainian NATO membership to the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. The next day, Russia pledged to decrease its use of force in Ukraine’s north as a sign of its commitment to the talks.

American officials, though, have been publicly skeptical of Russia’s seriousness in the talks. Even if Moscow is committed to reaching a settlement, the devil is always in the details with these sorts of things — and there are lots of barriers standing in the way of a successful resolution.

Take NATO. The Russians want a simple pledge that Ukraine will remain “neutral” — staying out of foreign security blocs. The current draft agreement, per the Financial Times, does preclude Ukrainian NATO membership, but it permits Ukraine to join the EU. It also commits at least 11 countries, including the United States and China, to coming to Ukraine’s aid if it is attacked again. This would put Ukraine on a far stronger security footing than it had before the war — a victory for Kyiv and defeat for Moscow, one that Putin may ultimately conclude is unacceptable.

Another thorny issue — perhaps the thorniest — is the status of Crimea and the two breakaway Russian-supported republics in eastern Ukraine. The Russians want Ukrainian recognition of its annexation of Crimea and the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions; Ukraine claims all three as part of its territory. Some compromise is imaginable here — an internationally monitored referendum in each territory, perhaps — but what that would look like is not obvious.

The resolution of these issues will likely depend quite a bit on the war’s progress. The more each side believes it has a decent chance to improve its battlefield position and gain leverage in negotiations, the less reason either will have to make concessions to the other in the name of ending the fighting.

And even if they do somehow come to an agreement, it may not end up holding .

On the Ukrainian side, ultra-nationalist militias could work to undermine any agreement with Russia that they believe gives away too much, as they threatened during pre-war negotiations aimed at preventing the Russian invasion .

On the Russian side, an agreement is only as good as Putin’s word. Even if it contains rigorous provisions designed to raise the costs of future aggression, like international peacekeepers, that may not hold him back from breaking the agreement.

This invasion did, after all, start with him launching an invasion that seemed bound to hurt Russia in the long run. Putin dragged the world into this mess; when and how it gets out of it depends just as heavily on his decisions.

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Six ways the war changed the world.

The ripple effects of Russia’s invasion have reordered lives and upended economies. Here are some of the consequences.

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By Matthew Mpoke Bigg

• Published Feb. 24, 2023 Updated Feb. 27, 2023

A year of war in Ukraine has reshaped the world in ways few had predicted. Far beyond the front lines, the ripple effects of Russia’s invasion have reordered lives and upended economies.

Here is a look at the war’s consequences in six key areas.

The war helped push global grain prices to record highs, given the importance of Russia and Ukraine as exporters of food crops including wheat. The United Nations warned that millions of people, especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East, were threatened with famine. In July, Moscow and Kyiv signed an agreement to release millions of tons of grain stuck in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports because of a de facto Russian naval blockade. Although Russia briefly suspended its participation in the deal in October, the agreement has largely held, and global grain prices have returned to prewar levels.

The war unleashed the worst global energy crisis since the 1970s. Energy prices soared in many parts of the world as nations reduced or cut off their purchases of Russian fossil fuels. In Europe, gas bills nearly doubled and electricity costs spiked about 70 percent in the first six months of the war. European Union diplomats in December agreed on a $60-per-barrel limit on the price at which Russian oil can be traded outside the bloc in another bid to deprive Moscow of revenue for the war. But with global supplies tight, Russia has remained a dominant exporter, selling more oil and gas to China and India over the last year.

The global economy was just emerging from the pandemic, and the energy crisis and slower growth contributed to higher inflation. Soaring prices ate away at people’s savings and paychecks, causing real wages to fall in many countries and slashing purchasing power. High inflation has become a political headache for leaders in countries including the United States , France and Britain , with governments raising spending to ease the pain for families and businesses using price caps, subsidies and reduced taxes.

President Biden said this week in Warsaw that “NATO is stronger than it’s ever been.” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have hoped his invasion would exacerbate divisions in NATO, but the alliance has been galvanized. Finland, which shares a border with Russia, abandoned its policy of neutrality and applied to join the alliance , as did Sweden. NATO leaders have said they expect that both will win approval, although Turkey has raised objections over Sweden’s treatment of Kurdish groups that Ankara regards as terrorists. In September, Ukraine applied to join , although its bid is considered a long shot.

More than eight million Ukrainians fled as refugees to other parts of Europe, particularly in the early stages of the war, according to the United Nations refugee agency . Another five million are estimated to be displaced inside Ukraine. The highest number of refugees, more than 1.5 million, are registered in Poland. At the same time, the war has enhanced the influence on the continent of Poland and the Baltic States, which have embraced stout defense of Ukraine and pushed for greater and faster supplies of military aid. Europe’s traditional leaders, France and Germany, struggled early on with the delicate task of reorienting their longstanding policies of a European security structure that included cooperation with Russia.

China has walked a fine line during the war, calling for peace while refraining from criticizing Russia, an increasingly important partner . China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on a tour of Europe this week, told his Ukrainian counterpart that he did not want to see the war “prolonged and escalated .” At the same time, China is holding joint military drills with Russia and South Africa, and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is expected to pay a state visit to Moscow in the spring. The Biden administration is watching closely for signs that China may cross the line into providing direct military support to Russia and has warned it against doing so , but Beijing has pushed back strongly against the U.S. accusations.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a correspondent covering international news. He previously worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief for Reuters and did postings in Nairobi, Abidjan, Atlanta, Jakarta and Accra. More about Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

The Biden administration is increasingly concerned that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is gathering enough momentum  to change the trajectory of the war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to reassure Ukrainians  that they could weather an ominous new Russian offensive and count on long-term support from the United States and its European allies.

Russian security agents detained a senior general , widening a purge of the country’s Defense Ministry amid Putin’s broader shake-up of his government .

Frozen Russian Assets: As much as $300 billion in frozen Russian assets is piling up profits and interest income by the day. Now, Ukraine’s allies are considering how to use those gains to aid Kyiv .

Rebuilding Ukrainian Villages: The people of the Kherson region have slowly rebuilt their livelihoods since Ukraine’s military forced out Russian troops. Now they are bracing for another Russian attack .

Ukraine’s Unidentified Dead: Families of some Ukrainian soldiers say they have spent months trying to get official confirmation of their loved ones’ deaths , adding to their anguish.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

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Global impact: 5 ways war in Ukraine has changed the world

FILE - A Ukrainian volunteer Oleksandr Osetynskyi, 44 holds a Ukrainian flag and directs hundreds of refugees after fleeing from the Ukraine and arriving at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Monday, March 7, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu, File)

FILE - Ukrainian military’s Grad multiple rocket launcher fires rockets at Russian positions in the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/LIBKOS, File)

FILE - Firefighters extinguish flames outside an apartment house after a Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Ukraine, Monday, March 14, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy, File)

FILE - People lie on the floor of a hospital during shelling by Russian forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin puts on protective glasses as he visits a military training center of the Western Military District for mobilized reservists in Ryazan Region, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - People walk past part of a rocket that sits wedged in the ground in Lysychansk, Luhansk region, Ukraine, Friday, May 13, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

FILE - The dead body of a person lies covered in the street in Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

FILE - Sand bags protect the Monument to Princess Olga, St. Andrew the Apostle and the educators Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv, Thursday, June 16, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP, File)

FILE - U.S. President Joe Biden, center, arrives for a round table meeting during an extraordinary NATO summit at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Thursday, March 24, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

FILE - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, left, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, EU and Ukraine official pose for a photo during the EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP, File)

FILE - In this image provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, shake hands during their walk in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 9, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee crossing the Irpin river in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

FILE - A Ukrainian serviceman smokes a cigarette at his position on the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers fire at Russian positions from a U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer in Kherson region, Ukraine, Jan. 9, 2023. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Libkos, File)

FILE - An abandoned car lies on the ground in a heavily damaged grain factory where Russians forces gathered destroyed vehicles at the recaptured town of Lyman, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)

FILE - A dump track unloads grain in a granary in the village of Zghurivka, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - Jennifer Jones sorts her bills at her small flat in London, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022. The war’s economic impact has been felt from chilly homes in Europe to food markets in Africa. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)

FILE - A flock of sheep graze in front of a coal-fired power plant at the Garzweiler open-cast coal mine near Luetzerath, western Germany, Oct. 16, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

FILE - A shopkeeper sells wheat flour in the Hamar-Weyne market in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia Thursday, May 26, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File)

FILE - In this photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired as part of Russia’s nuclear drills from a launch site in Plesetsk, northwestern Russia. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Residents gathering at an aid distribution point receive supplies in downtown Kherson, southern Ukraine, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

FILE - A woman cries in front of the building which was destroyed by a Russian attack in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

FILE - Victor Rosenberg, 81, looks out of a broken window in his home destroyed by the Russian rocket attack in the city centre of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, July 1, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - Nila Zelinska holds a doll belonging to her granddaughter, she was able to find in her destroyed house in Potashnya, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 31, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

File - A Ukrainian serviceman stands amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

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LONDON (AP) — War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. The world is a more unstable and fearful place since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022.

One year on , thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Tens of thousands of troops have been killed or seriously wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy.

Here are five ways the war has changed the world:

THE RETURN OF EUROPEAN WAR

Three months before the invasion, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scoffed at suggestions that the British army needed more heavy weapons. “The old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European landmass,” he said, “are over.”

Johnson is now urging the U.K. to send more battle tanks to help Ukraine repel Russian forces.

Despite the role played by new technology such as satellites and drones, this 21st-century conflict in many ways resembles one from the 20th. Fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region is a brutal slog , with mud, trenches and bloody infantry assaults reminiscent of World War I.

The conflict has sparked a new arms race that reminds some analysts of the 1930s buildup to World War II. Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of conscripts and aims to expand its military from 1 million to 1.5 million troops. The U.S. has ramped up weapons production to replace the stockpiles shipped to Ukraine. France plans to boost military spending by a third by 2030, while Germany has abandoned its longstanding ban on sending weapons to conflict zones and shipped missiles and tanks to Ukraine.

Before the war, many observers assumed that military forces would move toward more advanced technology and cyber warfare and become less reliant on tanks or artillery, said Patrick Bury, senior lecturer in security at the University of Bath.

But in Ukraine, guns and ammunition are the most important weapons.

“It is, for the moment at least, being shown that in Ukraine, conventional warfare — state-on-state — is back,” Bury said.

ALLIANCES TESTED AND TOUGHENED

Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped the invasion would split the West and weaken NATO. Instead, the military alliance has been reinvigorated . A group set up to counter the Soviet Union has a renewed sense of purpose and two new aspiring members in Finland and Sweden, which ditched decades of nonalignment and asked to join NATO as protection against Russia.

The 27-nation European Union has hit Russia with tough sanctions and sent Ukraine billions in support. The war put Brexit squabbles into perspective, thawing diplomatic relations between the bloc and awkward former member Britain.

“The EU is taking sanctions, quite serious sanctions, in the way that it should. The U.S. is back in Europe with a vengeance in a way we never thought it would be again,” said defense analyst Michael Clarke, former head of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

NATO member states have poured weapons and equipment worth billions of dollars into Ukraine. The alliance has buttressed its eastern flank, and the countries nearest to Ukraine and Russia, including Poland and the Baltic states, have persuaded more hesitant NATO and European Union allies, potentially shifting Europe’s center of power eastwards.

There are some cracks in the unity. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has lobbied against sanctions on Moscow, refused to send weapons to Ukraine and held up an aid package from the bloc for Kyiv.

Western unity will come under more and more pressure the longer the conflict grinds on.

“Russia is planning for a long war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of 2022, but the alliance was also ready for the “long haul.”

A NEW IRON CURTAIN

The war has made Russia a pariah in the West . Its oligarchs have been sanctioned and its businesses blacklisted, and international brands including McDonald’s and Ikea have disappeared from the country’s streets.

Yet Moscow is not entirely friendless . Russia has strengthened economic ties with China, though Beijing is keeping its distance from the fighting and so far has not sent weapons. The U.S. has recently expressed concern that may change.

China is closely watching a conflict that may serve as either encouragement or warning to Beijing about any attempt to reclaim self-governing Taiwan by force.

Putin has reinforced military links with international outcasts North Korea and Iran, which supplies armed drones that Russia unleashes on Ukrainian infrastructure. Moscow continues to build influence in Africa and the Middle East with its economic and military clout. Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has grown more powerful in conflicts from the Donbas to the Sahel.

In an echo of the Cold War, the world is divided into two camps, with many countries, including densely populated India, hedging their bets to see who emerges on top.

Tracey German, professor of conflict and security at King’s College London, said the conflict has widened a rift between the “U.S.-led liberal international order” on one side, and angry Russia and emboldened rising superpower China on the other.

A BATTERED AND RESHAPED ECONOMY

The war’s economic impact has been felt from chilly homes in Europe to food markets in Africa.

Before the war, European Union nations imported almost half their natural gas and third of their oil from Russia. The invasion, and sanctions slapped on Russia in response, delivered an energy price shock on a scale not seen since the 1970s.

The war disrupted global trade that was still recovering from the pandemic. Food prices have soared, since Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers of wheat and sunflower oil, and Russia is the world’s top fertilizer producer.

Grain-carrying ships have continued to sail from Ukraine under a fragile U.N.-brokered deal, and prices have come down from record levels. But food remains a geopolitical football. Russia has sought to blame the West for high prices, while Ukraine and its allies accuse Russia of cynically using hunger as a weapon.

The war “has really highlighted the fragility” of an interconnected world, just as the pandemic did, German said, and the full economic impact has yet to be felt.

The war also roiled attempts to fight climate change, driving an upsurge in Europe’s use of heavily polluting coal. Yet Europe’s rush away from Russian oil and gas may speed the transition to renewable energy sources faster than countless warnings about the dangers of global warming. The International Energy Agency says the world will add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the last 20.

A NEW AGE OF UNCERTAINTY

The conflict is a stark reminder that individuals have little control over the course of history. No one knows that better than the 8 million Ukrainians who have been forced to flee homes and country for new lives in communities across Europe and beyond.

For millions of people less directly affected, the sudden shattering of Europe’s peace has brought uncertainty and anxiety.

Putin’s veiled threats to use atomic weapons if the conflict escalates revived fears of nuclear war that had lain dormant since the Cold War. Fighting has raged around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising the specter of a new Chernobyl.

Patricia Lewis, director of the international security program at think-tank Chatham House, said Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling had provoked “more anger than fear” in the West. But concerns about nuclear escalation were heightened by Putin’s Feb. 21 announcement that he was suspending Russia’s participation in its sole remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the U.S.

Putin stopped short of withdrawing completely from the New START treaty and said Moscow would respect the treaty’s caps on nuclear weapons, keeping a faint glimmer of arms control alive.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

War in Ukraine: Lives and livelihoods, lost and disrupted

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused the greatest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Already, thousands of lives have been lost, and millions of livelihoods have been disrupted through displacement, lost homes, and lost incomes (Exhibit 1). We, like so many others, are shocked by the unfolding humanitarian tragedy and the consequences of this brutal war.

As in any conflict, uncertainty is high. It is unclear how the military situation, the political process, and the countermeasures around the world will play out—in either the shorter or longer term. However, it is already certain that, as a consequence of the economic impact of the crisis on energy and food markets, disruptions will affect many in Europe and beyond.

In this article, we offer an initial framing of the challenges, with full recognition of the uncertainties. We begin with a perspective on the short- and midterm disruptions and then frame scenarios for the potential impact on livelihoods in the eurozone, in the belief that some guidelines to bound uncertainty are better than none at all. As conditions change, we will adjust. We conclude with some reflections on implications for business leaders as they navigate yet another crisis.

Untangling short- and midterm disruptions

As business leaders deal with the short-term effects of the conflict, fundamental disruptions are under way that will shape the future beyond the immediate crisis. While we recognize that more challenges may emerge over time, several areas are already apparent:

The invasion of Ukraine is causing a massive humanitarian crisis. In addition to the pain and suffering experienced by those inside Ukraine, there are already more than three million people seeking refuge in neighboring nations, with similar numbers displaced within Ukraine. As in other major conflicts and refugee crises—including those in Syria and Yemen—it will be a gargantuan task for the world community to aid, shelter, and host these unfortunate people.

Once again, the vulnerable will suffer the most. Vulnerable populations are most likely to become refugees and will find it hardest to bear the rising costs of food and fuel. Aid efforts are under way globally to ensure that people’s basic needs for food, shelter, and psychological safety are met, in and beyond the conflict zone. Initial discussions on how to defray higher energy costs for all are taking place in many countries, and first funds have been made available.

Energy policy is rotating toward secure access and source diversification. The role of Russian oil and natural gas globally brings into focus the importance of access to energy. While acceleration of renewable energy can solve part of the puzzle, gas will remain an important source, and nuclear and coal may become larger components of the fuel mix to secure supply, particularly to replace potential shortages of gas. The implications for achieving publicly committed net-zero emissions are not yet clear.

Food security is on the agenda. The concentration of wheat, fertilizer, and related production in Russia and Ukraine will strain food supplies globally. Securing the continual supply of food to the countries most exposed to exports from these regions is becoming a major near-term issue .

The competition for critical materials, equipment, and commodities intensifies. The world’s real and perceived needs for secure access to natural resources, materials, and advanced equipment (for example, neon, nickel, palladium, semiconductors) is likely to grow and further intensify the race among nations and companies.

A new age of supply chain control efforts and localization attempts has arrived. The era of not looking too closely at supply chains, trusting suppliers, and optimizing for cost is probably over. Those behaviors, already made suspect by new tariff regimes and the COVID-19 pandemic, are now likely to be consigned to history. Governments and corporations are looking to increase supply chain resiliency and are considering innovative ways to fund these changes.

Global technology standards are more likely to separate. To promote security interests and foreign-policy objectives, governments have increased the use of geo-economic tools such as sanctions, direct-state support to strategic industries, and export controls over sensitive equipment, software, and technology. The coordinated use of these tools by like-minded countries in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to accelerate the trend toward separation of standards and independent technology development.

Financial-system ripple effects will occur.  The disruption of sanctioned financial flows has the potential to ripple through the banking system and financial markets, with significant repercussions for affected bondholders, lenders, aircraft lessors, derivatives counterparties, and investors. There remains a risk of contagion with second- and third-order effects across the globe.

Defense investments are being stepped up. The show of unity and economic sanctions by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, the European Union, and other European countries could drive a greater focus on defense resilience. France and Germany have both announced significant increases in defense spending. In early March 2022, the US Congress approved a $42 billion increase in America’s defense budget.

Cyber is a stage for conflict. Countries and companies have for years been concerned about the increasing frequency and sophistication of state-supported cyberattacks. Most concerning is the shift from ransomware and extortion to direct destruction. It was a major topic at the meeting between US president Joe Biden and Russia president Vladimir Putin in Geneva in June 2021. It is highly likely that these attacks will further intensify, testing the resilience of cybersecurity systems.

Corporate actors are taking a stand. This war has galvanized a strong global response against the invasion. Many corporations and other nonstate entities have restricted their activities beyond the formal requirements of sanctions to distance themselves from Russia and its actions.

Volatility, volatility, volatility. The war in Ukraine joins the already crowded timeline of 21st-century disruptions, with disparate origins and complex consequences. We see many business leaders trying to move their organizations from ad hoc reactions to each disruption to a foundation of greater resilience, staying alert to what is over the horizon and building capabilities to continually manage uncertainty.

This list covers only the most prominent vectors of disruption at this early stage of the Ukraine crisis. While there is a lot of uncertainty around how each of these will play out, many of them will likely matter a great deal to lives and livelihoods worldwide, albeit to very different extents, depending on geography and sector.

McKinsey Live webinar on ‘The Ukraine war’s humanitarian and economic consequences’ on Wednesday, March 30

War’s impact on livelihoods: Framing potential scenarios

We have learned from conflicts around the world that livelihoods adjacent to and sometimes far from the conflict zone can also be put at risk. In part, the risk arises because of inadequate attention paid to people whose economic well-being is already precarious; in part because of the inevitable knock-on effects in a highly connected world.

In framing scenarios for how the war will potentially affect livelihoods outside the conflict zone, we draw upon a wide range of expertise. 1 This framework considers perspectives from the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Oxford Economics, and leading geopolitical experts. We see two critical dimensions.

First is the scale and duration of disruption. The drivers of scale and duration of disruption are complex and include both military and political factors (such as sanctions). How high the prices for natural gas, oil, agricultural commodities, and minerals and metals go will in large part determine the effects on most people’s livelihoods—price rises have to be paid out of pocket. We currently illustrate three potential levels of disruption:

• Contained disruption. The disruption is significant but contained in duration and scale—for example, through a quickly negotiated cease-fire. Sanctions do not escalate further and may even be scaled back. Some refugees can return home. Energy and commodity markets stabilize, and prices begin to normalize.
• Extended disruption. The disruption continues and grows for some time—for example, through hostilities that continue throughout 2022. The refugee crisis worsens. Multilateral sanctions escalate moderately. The global energy and commodity markets adapt and stabilize, but prices remain elevated for some time.
• Severe, escalating disruption. The disruption becomes more pronounced in scale and duration—for example, through protracted hostilities. The refugee crisis grows more desperate. Energy, food, and commodity markets spiral higher over an extended period. Supply chains are disrupted, particularly in the Europe–Russia energy trade.

While military escalations beyond Ukraine are conceivable, we currently do not include them in our range of possibilities.

The second dimension is the impact of government policy, consumer, and business responses. Government actions will matter profoundly in modulating the impact that this war has on livelihoods. In our view, four elements are in play: (1) the COVID-19 economic policies that are in place as the world exits the Omicron wave; (2) new policies that may be initiated to blunt the impact of spiking energy prices; (3) policies and private-sector actions toward achieving net-zero emissions and sustainable growth; and (4) changes in consumer behavior. As these elements will come together unpredictably, we illustrate three potential policy responses:

• Restrained response. Central banks accelerate monetary tightening to limit inflation, hitting the confidence of consumers who continue to save instead of spend. Other headwinds persist and limit growth, including labor market tensions (for example, skill mismatches, rising unemployment, stagnant wages) and the enduring challenges of the COVID-19 shock, which hamper the ability of the economy to produce.
• Moderate response. Current fiscal and monetary stimulus programs continue to wind down, with a focus on steadily reining in inflation. Some new programs offer moderate, long-term support that help mitigate higher energy and food prices—for example, through fossil fuel investments or slowing down decarbonization plans. Consumers remain cautious but continue to spend moderately.
• Robust response. Monetary stimulus continues to wind down and successfully brings inflation under control. Governments also launch fiscal programs to blunt the impact of rising energy and food prices. Lower inflation and additional support are enough to buoy confidence and cause consumers to spend some of their pent-up savings. Significant energy investments increase resilience to energy shocks and hasten the energy transition.

As illustrated in Exhibit 2, the intersection of these two dimensions—the scale and duration of disruption and the ensuing responses—produces a range of potential scenarios, with differing effects on global lives and livelihoods.

The current context

Across all scenarios, a few facts are immutable. The harshest effects are being felt in Ukraine. This is where lives have been lost and thrown into turmoil. Destruction of property and infrastructure is already extensive and worsening by the day. The impact of sanctions on Russia is significant: the ruble has lost about half of its value since the onset of hostilities, consumer prices are increasing rapidly, the Russian central bank has been forced to lift short-term interest rates to 20 percent, and the Russian stock market is closed.

Beyond the conflict zone, the invasion of Ukraine takes place at a fraught moment for the global economy and livelihoods, particularly the vulnerable. COVID-19 is receding in many parts of the world but is not yet gone, and it is still a crisis in many countries, with some of them struggling with the exit from public-health interventions. Furthermore, the possibility of a new and severe virus variant  cannot be discounted. Also, inflation continues to gather steam in most parts of the world. In some, it has reached multidecade highs and is driving up the costs of living for households.

Energy is a particular concern (and is a key parameter across scenarios 2 Energy supply, demand, and price assumptions were developed in partnership with McKinsey Energy Insights. ). European natural-gas prices have jumped 60 percent since Russia started massing troops. Brent crude oil is consistently trading near $120 per barrel. Further, prices for key agricultural, mineral, and metal commodities rose 10 to 15 percent in the first week of the conflict; nickel prices doubled recently. Ukraine and Russia together produce about 30 percent of global wheat; spot market prices are up about 40 percent. They are also the largest producers of class 1 nickel (used in electric-vehicle batteries), with a 23 percent global share, and the second-largest producers of palladium (used in catalytic converters), holding a 38 percent global share.

The spike in commodity prices has shaken the confidence of consumers and businesses globally. Regardless of which scenario ultimately plays out, households may remain cautious and will keep on the sidelines the excess savings that they have accumulated during the pandemic, at least in the near term, even as the economy fully reopens. Businesses may look to slow all but necessary expenditures and hiring. And the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have, as of March 11, 2022, stated that they see the risks of accelerating inflation to be greater than those of potentially weak demand and are moving to halt the inflation cycle by initiating a steady pace of interest-rate increases.

Initial economic scenarios for the eurozone

We have modeled three scenarios—1B, 2A, and 3B—which may help leaders and decision makers bound uncertainty as it appears today. Scenario 1B captures contained disruption with moderate policy response. Scenario 2A looks at extended disruption and robust policy response. Finally, scenario 3B considers outcomes from a severe, escalating disruption, but still with moderate policy response. (Scenario 3C is also a distinct possibility, if central banks act more aggressively to fight inflation and the conflict endures for some time.)

In what follows, we focus on the eurozone, which is the world’s largest macroeconomy and highly exposed to the conflict. At the conclusion of this section, we offer some considerations for other geographies. Here, we do not analyze Eastern Europe per se but are keenly aware that these nations will see direct and significant impact from the economic disruption, as well as the burgeoning refugee crisis. We use GDP to measure impact on livelihoods, as incomes are a substantial component of GDP. As is standard in scenario analyses, any point estimates in our calculations are not forecasts but merely the center point of a range of potential outcomes.

Scenario 1B: Contained disruption with moderate policy response

In this scenario, the end of hostilities occurs within a few more weeks. Sanctions do not escalate further and may even be scaled back; energy exports from Russia to Europe keep flowing. Before the end of 2022, natural-gas prices in Europe return to their precrisis peak of about $30 per million British thermal units (MMBtu); Brent crude returns to $70 to $80 per barrel. GDP growth (and thus jobs and incomes) across the eurozone reverts to its precrisis trend, albeit with a first-quarter slowdown, reflecting the shock of the invasion.

Inflation expectations remain elevated relative to prepandemic norms but are stable, and the European Central Bank continues to reduce monetary stimulus. Consumer confidence reverts to its prepandemic level, and businesses continue their COVID-19-exit investment plans through most of the eurozone by the second quarter of 2022.

Eurozone GDP growth in 2022 returns to a preinvasion trajectory of 3.8 percent. Growth falls to 2.7 percent in 2023 and 1.5 percent in 2024 as economies return to their long-term trends. Germany, the largest economy in the eurozone, follows a similar trajectory: growth of 3.5 percent in 2022, 3.0 percent in 2023, and 1.3 percent in 2024. Exhibit 3 sets out estimated GDP growth for each of the three scenarios.

The Russia/Ukraine discussions announced on March 16, 2022, if agreed, would likely result in this scenario.

Scenario 2A: Extended disruption with robust policy response

In this scenario, the end of hostilities is in sight in the second half of 2022. Sanctions do not extend into the energy sector; energy exports from Russia to Europe keep flowing. However, natural-gas prices in Europe return only to their precrisis peak of about $30 per MMBtu, and Brent crude trades between $90 and $100 per barrel throughout 2022. Consumer confidence bounces back by the end of the year, and households use their pent-up savings to drive a surge in demand, particularly for services, and businesses respond with additional investments and hiring. Further, sentiment on energy policy shifts rapidly given new concerns about energy insecurity. Businesses and governments make near-term investments in additional fossil fuel capacity to ensure resilience—and also accelerate investment in sustainable energy.

Shocks to energy, food, and other commodities boost eurozone inflation to more than 4 percent in 2022, versus 2.5 to 3.0 percent in 2021. Exhibit 4 reviews energy prices and inflation in each of the three scenarios. But prices fall back as a resolution to the war comes into view. By early 2023, the effects of energy shocks recede, and central-bank actions successfully slow inflation, with consecutive monthly increases in prices trending downward. Inflation expectations remain elevated relative to prepandemic norms but are stable, providing a strong signal that inflation has been contained.

With elevated price levels in the near term, as well as the shock from the invasion, GDP growth in the eurozone and Germany is essentially flat in 2022. Growth in the eurozone rises to 2.1 percent in 2023 and 4.8 percent in 2024. The German economy grows slightly faster: 2.7 percent in 2023 and 5.5 percent in 2024, buoyed in part by increased spending on defense.

Scenario 3B: Severe, escalating disruption with moderate policy response

In this scenario, protracted conflict intensifies the refugee crisis in Central Europe. Western countries and Russia further extend sanctions, leading to the shutdown of oil and gas exports from Russia to Europe. European gas prices more than double to $70 per MMBtu in early 2022, from their already-high level of about $30, and Brent crude jumps to $150 per barrel.

Eurozone headline inflation spikes to more than 7 percent on the year. The continent can replace some of its natural-gas shortfall in part by buying on the spot market and in part by slowing the shift away from coal. Producing and consuming nations can build new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export/import infrastructure over time, but in the near term, higher prices, lower real incomes, and reduced consumer spending will result in some demand destruction.

Combined with the collapse in confidence we are already seeing, the eurozone tips into recession in 2022 and 2023. Growth slips to –0.5 percent in both years; growth in Germany is weaker, at –1.4 percent, because of its greater reliance on natural gas. By mid-2023, the weak economy suppresses demand; energy prices fall from their peak, easing inflation considerably. Entering 2024, GDP growth resumes as consumer spending and business investment start to rebound, even as a low-intensity conflict in Ukraine continues. By the end of 2024, employment finally regains the ground it has lost since 2019, and growth moves back to prepandemic long-term trends.

Effects on other large economies

Of course, the nature of disruption and the ability of governments to respond will differ across countries, and we can anticipate a wide range of scenarios. In any scenario, growth in large economies such as China and the United States will be less directly affected than in the eurozone. Two questions arise. Will the war in Ukraine disrupt consumer and business confidence ? What will be the impact of higher commodity prices?

In the United States, the key issue will be how the Federal Reserve Board reacts to the impact of the spike in oil prices and to the jump in agricultural, mining, and mineral commodity prices (US natural-gas prices are largely independent of Europe). Under more normal circumstances, the Fed would likely not react to supply-driven spikes in inflation, preferring to ensure that growth does not falter. But inflation in the United States is already uncomfortably high. On March 16, 2022, the Fed raised its short-term rate by 25 basis points, the first hike since December 2018. In its statement, the Fed also said that it “anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate.” Market observers are in widespread agreement that even larger 50-basis-point increases are likely. It appears that the invasion of Ukraine will only slow the pace of interest-rate hikes, not change the course of policy in the United States. In scenario 2A, US growth would be flat. In scenario 3B, shaken confidence and continued high prices for oil would reduce spending by consumers and businesses, and a recession would ensue.

The main impact in China will likely come from price increases in globally traded commodities; indirect effects such as reduced demand from trade partners will also matter. Consumer sentiment in China itself is less likely to be affected.

Implications for business leaders

The speed of this crisis has confounded many corporate leaders. The fog of war makes it hard to understand exactly what is happening in the moment, let alone chart a path forward. However, many companies need to decide how to act both now and in anticipation of longer-term disruptions, especially those we outlined at the outset.

Not every company is affected the same way. Businesses that operate in Ukraine or Russia will be most immediately affected. Right now, most of these companies are deeply engaged in safeguarding the lives of their employees.

For others, their geographic location, scope of operations, and industry sector will determine to what extent the war will affect their business. This crisis is structurally different than the pandemic. For companies outside the war zone, threats to employees’ lives are less immediate. Instead, their near-term challenges are more likely to concern the effect of sanctions and challenges of compliance, the stance toward Russia they decide to take, and, especially for manufacturing companies, inflationary effects on cost and issues related to continuity of supply.

After several months of rising inflation in much of the world, another rapid rise in commodity prices is especially concerning. It will drive headline inflation to even greater highs and lengthen the period of elevated inflation. Our conversations with executives worldwide suggest that a concerted, enterprise-wide effort is the only appropriate response. Leading companies are tackling inflation simultaneously in procurement, pricing, supply chains, the workforce, and the finance function.

Executives can be guided by the degree to which their organizations are exposed to the forces originating from this crisis. All leaders should develop a view of the scenarios that matter to them, designing models that reflect their industry and their own circumstances. Leaders concerned about more substantial impact can reactivate as appropriate proven tools from the previous few major crises, including nerve centers and plan-ahead teams . One critical difference between this crisis and COVID-19: today the world is suffering from supply shocks (which might be followed by demand shocks), while in March 2020 it was the other way around. Plan-ahead teams should start by modeling today’s supply shocks. These cross-functional teams can also help to avoid decision-making biases and other pitfalls of crisis management under high uncertainty, while also supporting longer-term resilience.

The scenarios above suggest that only a contained disruption can be absorbed by Europe and the global economy—from a macroeconomic point of view—but that window will not stay open for long. We hope that the scenarios will help you and your organization navigate a confusing and challenging period. At the same time, we recognize their shortcomings; they fail to account for the extraordinarily long and fat tail of risks that most wars implicitly carry.

This war has already caused devastation and suffering. March 2022 is reminiscent of times in Europe we all thought had long passed. In the interests of people in Ukraine and everywhere, we dearly hope that this conflict will end as soon as possible.

Sven Smit is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office, Martin Hirt is a senior partner in our Greater China office, Kevin Buehler is a senior partner in the New York office, Olivia White is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, Ezra Greenberg is a partner in the Stamford office, Mihir Mysore is a partner in the Houston office, Arvind Govindarajan is a partner in the Boston office, and Eric Chewning is a partner in the Washington, DC, office.

The authors wish to thank colleagues Gillian Boccara, Luciano Di Fiori, Tigmanshu Goyal, Berend Heringa, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, and Madhuri Maddipatla, and Neil Walker of Oxford Economics, for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Mark Staples, an executive editor in the New York office.

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FACT SHEET: One Year of Supporting   Ukraine

Nearly one year ago, Russia launched its unjust, brutal assault against Ukraine. Putin’s invasion was a test of Ukraine’s commitment to freedom, and a test for America and the world. Putin sought to subjugate Ukraine, but the free people of Ukraine stood strong—bravely defending their sovereignty and democracy. The United States, alongside our allies and partners, did not hesitate to stand with them. 

Over the last year, the United States has provided critical support to the people of Ukraine, working in close coordination with the government of Ukraine to get them what they need. President Biden has spoken regularly with President Zelenskyy, hosting him at the White House and visiting Kyiv to send powerful messages of the United States’ unwavering support. We have led the world in providing security assistance—from the Javelins that halted the Russian tanks assaulting Kyiv, to the air defense systems that have intercepted Russian strikes against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, to the armored vehicles that Ukraine needs for the next phase of this conflict. We also stepped up to provide financial and humanitarian assistance—helping Ukrainians maintain access to fundamental services, like healthcare and heat, as they fight for their liberty and sovereignty.

The United States has not acted alone. Since first exposing Russia’s plans to launch this invasion, we ensured that Ukraine’s resilience has been matched with global resolve. We rallied the international community to speak out and stand against Russia’s brutal war, including at the United Nations, where the world has repeatedly and overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s aggression. We have led unprecedented efforts to isolate and impose costs on Russia—including the largest coordinated sanctions and export control actions taken against a major economy. In response to the global economic disruptions caused by the Kremlin, we have launched initiatives that have stabilized energy markets and food supplies. And we supported our partners as they opened their homes and communities to millions of Ukrainians seeking refuge.

One year ago, Putin thought he could quickly topple Ukraine. He thought he could divide our allies and partners. He was wrong. Ukraine still stands. The international coalition in support of Ukraine is stronger and more united than ever. And President Biden’s visit to Kyiv yesterday sent a clear and powerful message to the world: we remain committed to standing with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.

Actions we have taken to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable over the last year include:

Security Assistance 

Over the past year, the United States and our allies and partners provided critical security assistance that made a real difference on the battlefield, and helped the people of Ukraine defend their country from Russian attacks and advances.

At the start of the war, the anti-armor and anti-air systems we provided—like the 8,000 Javelin and 1,600 Stingers—enabled Ukraine to win the Battle for Kyiv. The artillery and ammunition we have sent—such as the 160 howitzers and 38 High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems—enhanced Ukraine’s ability to defend its territory in the Donbas region and launch successful counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson, reclaiming hundreds of kilometers of territory and liberating towns and villages subjected to unimaginable Russian brutality. The air defense systems and counter-drone capabilities that we provided help Ukraine protect its people and infrastructure against continued Russian attacks.  The armored capabilities we are sending—including 109 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and tanks—will prepare Ukraine for future counteroffensives and help Ukraine adapt to changing conditions on the ground and defend against future Russian assaults.

We have provided more than one million rounds of artillery ammunition; more than 100,000 rounds of 125mm tank ammunition; and 100,000 rounds of small arms ammunition. We have provided helicopters; Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels, and counter-UAV systems and equipment. And the Departments of Defense and State have released a plan to prevent and counter the potential of illicit diversion of weapons and equipment.

Working with European partners and Ukraine, the United States also launched the Ukraine Defense Contact Group—a coalition of 50 partner nations that has enhanced our coordination of security assistance deliveries to help the people of Ukraine as they continue to defend themselves against Russia’s unjust and unprovoked assault. Together, members of this group already committed $50 billion security assistance, including nearly 700 tanks and thousands of other armored vehicles, more than 1000 artillery systems, more than two million rounds of artillery ammunition, more than 50 advanced multiple rocket launch systems, and anti-ship and air defense systems. 

A comprehensive list of security assistance is available here .

Humanitarian Assistance

When Russia launched its invasion, the United States responded quickly to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine—providing more than $1.9 billion to Ukrainians in need of assistance, including more than 13 million people forced to flee their homes.

We brought together partners across the United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations to address Ukrainian’s critical needs—including food, safe drinking water, shelter, and emergency health care. When winter approached and Putin turned his assault to critical infrastructure, a U.S.-led coalition provided supplies to restore emergency power and heat across the country. In addition to welcoming over 267,000 Ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes to the United States and creating the Uniting for Ukraine program, we have provided $340 million in refugee assistance to our European partners who continue to host millions of Ukrainians, representing the largest population outflow in Europe since World War II.

A comprehensive list of humanitarian assistance is available here .

Democracy, Human Rights, and Anti-Corruption Assistance

To defend human rights in Ukraine and its neighbors, President Biden launched the European Democratic Resilience Initiative (EDRI) in March 2022. Through EDRI, we have provided nearly $220 million for Ukraine to support media freedom and enable Ukrainian media outlets to continue operating during the war, to counter disinformation, increase the safety and security of activists and vulnerable groups, strengthen democratic and anti-corruption institutions, and support accountability for human rights abuses and violations of international law. 

Holding Russia Accountable

Justice and accountability are central pillars of the United States’ policy on Ukraine.  Russia chose this war, and the United States and our partners are holding it accountable for its attacks and atrocities against the people of Ukraine — ensuring that perpetrators, human rights violators, and war criminals are brought to justice.

Based on a careful analysis of the law and available facts, the Secretary of State recently determined that members of Russia’s forces and other Russian officials have committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.  

Working with partners, we have supported Ukrainian domestic authorities, international efforts, and strategic litigation to ensure that Russia’s crimes do not go unpunished. Along with many of our allies and partners, we imposed new sanctions on those engaged in human rights abuses and exercising illegitimate authority in occupied areas of Ukraine, including proxy authorities, military units, and those involved in the forced deportation of children.

The United States has also imposed expansive visa restrictions on members of the Russian military and others committing human rights abuses related to Russia’s war.  The United States continues to support a range of international accountability mechanisms—including the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Moscow Mechanism, and the Joint Investigative Team on Ukraine. 

Economic Measures Against Russia

The United States and over 30 allies and partners developed the largest set of sanctions and export control actions ever imposed on a major economy. These actions are disrupting Russia from accessing critical inputs and advanced technologies — undercutting its ability to fund and fight its unjust war.

The United States has implemented or expanded more than 2,000 sanctions listings and more than 375 export control Entity Listings, including major state-owned enterprises and third-country actors supporting Russia’s war machine. We imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest financial institutions and imposed increasingly expansive restrictions on military and industrial goods that could support Russia’s defense industrial base. As a result, Russia has been forced to turn to rogue regimes to try to source weapons and equipment because of their inability to make enough parts to resupply Putin’s war at home. Additionally, Congress has revoked Russia’s permanent normal trade relations status — removing Russia’s privileges in international trade and increasing tariffs on hundreds of Russia products imported into the United States.

These sanctions and export controls will cut even deeper into Russia’s economy as time progresses. And at the same time, our economic measures have been specifically designed to shield low- and middle-income countries from their impact — including protecting the exports of food, allowing the provision of humanitarian assistance, and carving out agriculture, medicine, and energy payments from our sanctions.

Energy Assistance and Security

When Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, trying to use winter as a weapon against the Ukrainian people, the United States and its allies and partners provided energy assistance: restoring power, heating homes, and enabling the people of Ukraine to focus on the defense of their sovereignty.

Together with our allies and partners, we provided critical electricity equipment to help Ukraine make emergency repairs to its power system and strengthen the stability of Ukraine’s grid in the face of Russia’s targeted attacks. We also worked with Ukraine to advance its energy transition and build a system decoupled from Russian energy. And we worked to stabilize global energy markets, limit Russia’s revenue, and blunt the impacts of Russia’s war on energy security. Through the U.S.-EU Task Force on Energy Security, we ensured Europe had enough gas for the winter. The United States also released 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, ensured international energy payments continue to flow under our sanctions, and implemented a G7+ price cap on seaborne Russian oil and petroleum products.

We also took steps to reduce nuclear risks posed by Russia’s reckless actions at and around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants to support energy infrastructure, including through training for emergency responders, radiation sensor monitoring, and the provision of emergency diesel fuel and other nuclear safety supplies.

Economic Assistance

The United States has disbursed $13 billion in grant financing for budget support for Ukraine —and will soon begin disbursing another $9.9 billion that Congress recently approved — to ensure the Ukrainian government can continue to meet the critical needs of its citizens and provide basic services as it confronts Russia’s continued aggression. Through the World Bank’s Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance mechanism, the United States has used it to provide budget support on a reimbursement basis — ensuring funding is disbursed to Ukraine only after expenses have been verified.

In its leadership role in international financial institutions, the United States has also worked closely with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to support Ukraine — including to strengthen energy security, food security, and support for vulnerable populations and internally displaced persons across the country. Together with the G7, we have launched the Multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform for Ukraine, to enhance our coordination of economic support for Ukraine’s immediate financing needs and future economic recovery and reconstruction efforts.

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Ukraine Has Changed Too Much to Compromise With Russia

My generation has tasted freedom and experienced a competitive, vibrant political life. We can’t be made a part of what Russia has become.

H ere in Ukraine , we often react very emotionally when we hear people in the West calling for peace with Russia. According to some commentators , this would be achieved by means of a “compromise,” entailing Ukrainian “concessions” that would somehow satisfy the Kremlin and stop the war: major territorial giveaways, armed forces reduced to insignificance, no further integration with the West—you name it.

Most of us see such views as extremely naive, given the totalitarian and militaristic nature of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Having built his rule on war hysteria, land grabs, imperial chauvinism, and global confrontation, Putin is hardly likely to stop even at a deal that most Ukrainians would find entirely unacceptable.

But that leads us to another problem that much of the Western media fail to fully appreciate: Ten years of confrontation with the Kremlin, and especially the past two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, have fundamentally changed Ukraine. These changes are not superficial or easily swept away.

Read: The one element keeping Ukraine from total defeat

A little more than a decade ago, many young Ukrainians—including those, like myself, from Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east—were angry and restless, itching for something we saw just over the horizon. In high schools and universities, we read Montesquieu and soaked up such tantalizing concepts  as the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. Western values felt native to our generation; we were open to the world in a way that our parents had never imagined. Most of them had ventured no farther than Central Asia for their Soviet military service, or maybe Moscow for the 1980 Olympics.

My peers and I wanted our country to have clean streets, polite police, and government officials who would resign at the exposure of petty corruption scandals. We wanted to be able to start businesses without passing money under the table, and to trust that courts of law would render justice. What we did not want were irremovable, lifetime dictators who packed the government with cronies on the take and sent goons to beat us up in the streets.

In Kyiv’s Maidan Square, starting in November 2013 and lasting into February 2014, demonstrators showed their fervor for such a future in what became known as the Revolution of Dignity. Some gave their lives to unseat Viktor Yanukovych, the kleptocratic ruler Moscow supported, and orient Ukraine unequivocally toward the West. At the site of desolation, armloads of flowers commemorated these dead. Yanukovych fled a country that despised him and had spiraled out of his control.

A new Ukraine began—and with it, a decade-long war of independence, as the Kremlin marked our revolution by seizing Crimea and infiltrating the Donbas region in the country’s east. For nearly a decade, Ukraine was fighting on two fronts: a military war against Russia, and an internal struggle for its revolution’s ideals, which meant stamping out corruption, obsolescence, unfreedom—everything that might drag the country back into the past.

Ukraine is still far from achieving all that my generation once dreamed of. But we do live in a country that is radically different from the Russian-influenced Ukraine of 2013—politically, mentally, and culturally. And we are starkly different from Putin’s Russia.

Ukrainians have tasted freedom and experienced a competitive, vibrant political life. We elected a comedian to be our leader after he faced down an old-school political heavyweight in a debate that was held in a giant stadium in downtown Kyiv and aired live to the nation. We’ve reinvented Ukrainian culture, generating new music, poetry, and stand-up comedy. Starting in 2014, we had to build our country’s armed forces almost from scratch; we are insanely proud of them, as they have fought heroically against one of the largest and most brutal war machines in existence.

A few weeks ago , I brought my dog to a veterinarian in Bucha, the town outside Kyiv where Russian forces committed a well-documented massacre in 2022. As the young doctor handled my dog, I noticed a large Ukrainian trident entwined with blue and yellow ribbons tattooed on her wrist under her white sleeve. For my generation of Ukrainians, such national symbols are an expression of pride in all we’ve made and defended.

I was with one of the first groups of journalists to enter Bucha after the Russian retreat in 2022. To describe the atmosphere is very difficult: I remember rot, stillness, a miasma of grief. The Russians had graffitied the letter V everywhere. On a fence along the main street: Those entering the no-go zone shall be executed. V. We followed the Ukrainian police as they broke through doors into premises inhabited only by the dead. Some of the bodies were charred and mutilated. I saw two males and two females lying on the ground, incompletely burned, their mouths open and hands twisted. One looked to be a teenage girl.

Outside the Church of Andrew the Apostle—a white temple that rises high over Bucha—Ukrainian coroners in white hazmat suits carefully removed layers of wet, clayish soil from a mass grave and placed 67 bodies on simple wooden doors under the cold drizzle. A tow truck hoisted the cadavers out one by one, hour by hour. Now and again, the rain would pick up, and the coroners would hastily cover the grave with plastic sheeting stained with dried gore.

“My theory is that there was a very brutal Russian commander in charge of Bucha,” Andriy Nebytov, the chief of police for Kyiv Oblast, told reporters at the church that day. “And they unleashed hell in this place.”

The Continent apartment complex used to be one of the finest in Bucha. I met a guy named Mykola Mosyarevych in a basketball court there. In his 30s and fit, he was a likely target for the Russians—a potential guerrilla fighter or member of the Territorial Defense—and so he’d spent the whole month in a basement. After the Russians left Bucha, on the day of my visit, he sat staring at a pair of ripped Russian fatigues marked with the orange-and-black striped ribbon of Saint George—a symbol of war and love for destruction. He wept. Over and over again, he said: “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why they would want to do all this to us.”

We all asked similar questions, and our fragmentary answers could bring little comfort to Mosyarevych or anyone else: lust for power, years of aggressive propaganda, a sense of impunity, a would-be emperor grasping at illusion. Deep down, fear.

Read: Ukraine’s shock will last for generations

Later that day, I walked alone with my camera through what was left of a Russian armored column on Vokzalna Street. Bucha’s defenders recalled that the Russians in this column had been moving carelessly and singing patriotic songs when Ukrainian forces struck their leading and trailing vehicles. The column stopped. The remaining Russian vehicles scrambled like bumper cars to maneuver through the wreckage, find a way out, and save themselves. But Vokzalna Street is narrow: They were trapped. A Ukrainian artillery strike left hardly any vehicle whole. The layer of ash on the ground was so thick that it crunched underfoot like snow.

What used to be a leafy green lane, part of my favorite bicycle route to Bucha and Hostomel, had become a cemetery. But within three weeks, Ukrainian workers had cleared away the rubble and repaved the road. Later, Warren Buffett’s son donated funds for Ukrainian authorities to completely renovate the street and construct new, Scandinavian-style, single-family houses with lawns and picket fences. Online, people posted tens of thousands of likes and comments under images comparing Vokzalna Street during the Russian occupation and after.

Springtime soon came, too, and with it snaking lines of cars, as thousands of people who had fled poured back into their hometown days after its liberation. Young mothers returned with their strollers. Time would absorb the grief and horrors of this war, as it had of so many that had come before.

Even so, I don’t want to think about what will happen to my dog’s veterinarian if the Russians make it back to Bucha. Or what will happen to Ukraine. After everything that’s transpired over the past decade—and especially given what Russia has become—Ukraine must not be made a Russian colony again.

Today’s Russia is a neo-Stalinist dictatorship led by an aging chauvinist. In the grip of his messianic delusion, Putin initiated the biggest European war since World War II. He seeks to eliminate Ukraine not only as an independent nation, but also as an idea. No concessions or compromises are possible with such a vision—not given the kind of country Ukrainians have made and fought to defend.

This essay is adapted from I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv , published on May 7 by Bloomsbury.

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The Ukraine Crisis: A Clash of Narratives?

Emma mateo, uc fellow - university of oxford.

This this essay was written in October 2018 for the University Consortium Conference, in response to the prompt: “ Discuss the narratives used to explain the Ukrainian crisis from three different perspectives - Russian, American, and European Union”. Therefore it does not refer to the election of President Zelensky, ongoing Trump-Ukraine scandal, or discussions of the ‘Steinmeier’ formula for peace in the Donbass.       

Introduction

The term ‘Ukrainian Crisis’ is frequently used to refer to the ongoing political upheaval which began in Ukraine during the winter of 2013-14. However, the term is misleading as it refers to a situation which is about much more than domestic Ukrainian politics. The ‘crisis’ is often seen as beginning with the Ukrainian ‘Euromaidan’ protests [1] against President Yanukovych’s unexpected refusal to sign the EU Association agreements (EUAA) in November 2013. And yet, as the protests spread across the country and culminated with the fleeing of the president in February 2014, Ukraine found itself caught between clashing ‘great power’ narratives about what was happening on its territory, and what its future should look like. The aftermath of the Euromaidan saw a new, pro-European government installed; but also the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia, and the outbreak of separatist conflict in the east of Ukraine, stoked and supported by the Kremlin. Relations between Russia and the West soured dramatically as a result of the situation, and the conflict and annexation continue to this day.

This essay will take a step back from the numerous, conflicting narratives about the individual events of the crisis and the short-term factors which contributed to it. Instead, it will discuss broad Russian, US and European Union (EU) metanarratives of the crisis, which are crucial to understanding the long-term causes of the conflict. [2] These metanarratives do not relate directly to Ukraine itself, but rather reflect a clash between these self-perceived ‘great powers’ over the geopolitical orientation of Eastern Europe, with Ukraine caught in the crossfire. Ukraine’s own narratives about the crisis and its right to agency and sovereignty are frequently overshadowed by the narratives of larger powers. Nevertheless, these competing narratives constrain Ukraine’s ability to act, and need to be taken into account. Neither a focus solely on Ukrainian internal politics, nor on Russia-West relations and geopolitics, will resolve the current situation. Unless the current Russia-West tensions caused by these conflicting metanarratives ease, there is little hope of Ukraine being rid of armed conflict, let alone free to make independent choices about its future.

A crisis in the making

The current meta-narratives framing the Ukrainian crisis germinated with the collapse of the USSR. Since 1991, Russia, Europe and the US have been using different narratives to frame the post-Soviet space. For Russia, the formerly Soviet, Central and Eastern European states remained its privileged zone of influence – let’s call this this Russia’s ‘sphere of influence’ metanarrative. Russia’s attitude towards its neighbouring states is reflective of its policy of derzhavnost, with the idea that there are only a few ‘great powers’ which are ‘truly sovereign states’. As most of the post-Soviet states are not ‘truly sovereign’, Russia believes it can treat them as it sees fit. [3] In line with this narrative, Russia has been working towards exerting influence in the region since the 1990’s: first with efforts such as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), later followed in the 2000’s by the Customs Union and Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Through these supranational bodies, Russia has been vying to influence the trade, foreign policy and security of states in its ‘near abroad’. Creating this ‘sphere of influence’ is key to securing Russia’s vision of itself as a great power in a multi-polar world; whilst also bolstering Putin’s image and consolidating his power domestically. [4]

Meanwhile, EU policy since 1991 has increasingly engaged with the states between its borders and Russia, through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and later Eastern Partnerships (EaP). The EU did not see Russia as having any special status in the region. Rather, the EU envisioned expanding a network of democratic, market-oriented states, governed by the rule of law, into what is saw as its own ‘near abroad’. Let’s call this the ‘European neighbourhood’ narrative. Although EU policy on the region was not officially ‘zero-sum’, a pervasive view developed in the EU that the EaP offered a ‘civilisational choice’ for Eastern Europe, distinct from that of Russia. [5] There was little engagement with Russia during the development of the ENP and EaP, which if not a deliberate attempt to sideline Russia, was nevertheless ‘naive’ and ‘arrogant’. [6] Russia had in fact been clear with the EU and US that it would defend its interests in Ukraine. [7] Whilst the EU saw these policies as benign efforts to lead reform and development in the region, Moscow saw them as hindering its ‘Eurasian’ project and trying to assert Western ideals for strategic goals. [8]

What about US views of the post-Soviet space? Since 1991, the US has seen the growth of democratic institutions and human rights in the region, along with NATO expansion, as desirable and an unmitigated good. We can call this the ‘Euro-Atlantic community’ narrative. Washington failed to address how its support for democracy and the Colour Revolutions of the 2000’s was perceived by Russia as a tool to enact US policy in the region. [9] Moscow feared being surrounded by hostile states, and the possibility that the West could attempt to foment regime change in Russia. The ‘counter revolutionary regional policy’ which Russia pursued in the years following the Colour Revolutions was seen by the West as an attempt to undermine democratic norms. However, it is possible that Russia was not necessarily promoting authoritarianism, and rather just wanted ‘friendly’ states on its borders. [10]

Thus, since the 1990’s, the EU, US and Russia have all held different narratives about Eastern Europe’s future: a Russian ‘sphere of influence’, a ‘European neighbourhood’, or part of the ‘Euro-Atlantic community’. These visions relate not only to geo-economics but also questions of which norms, values and actors should influence the region, and therefore a zero-sum game has developed. This contestation over the geopolitical orientation of this formerly Soviet neighbourhood, with Ukraine its biggest and most significant country, is a key cause of the Ukraine Crisis. Arbatova sees the Ukraine Crisis as the ‘first direct conflict between differing regional strategies of Russia and the EU’. [11] Ukraine is key to both strategies, and found itself caught between the EU and the Customs Union:  33% and 29% of its external trade was shared between these partners respectively. [12] By 2012-13 both Moscow and Brussels were pressuring Ukraine with an ‘either/or’ choice - to sign an EU association and trade agreement, or move towards joining the EEU. Neither Moscow nor Brussels were trying to find a way by which Ukraine itself could benefit from both options. [13] Whichever option Ukraine chose, a backlash was likely from the ‘losing’ side, unwilling to relinquish the country core to its Eastern European vision, and fearing the outcome of victory for the opposing side.

Not only are the three narratives discussed above incompatible, but these narratives have also frequently been misunderstood or misinterpreted by the different parties. The EU and US perceive Russia’s ‘sphere of influence’ narrative as part of a plan to gain control over the country and region, create a network of authoritarian states, and perhaps even rebuild the Soviet Empire. Russia sees EU and US desires to ‘Westernise’ Ukraine as part of a plan to undermine its influence, bring NATO to its borders, and ultimately weaken Russia and enact regime change. These misunderstandings lead to cognitive dissonance, which creates a serious barrier to resolving conflicts around Ukraine: how can actors resolve a problem, if they do not agree on what the problem is?

Revolution and geopolitical wrangling

In this context, Yanukovych's last-minute turnaround and refusal to sign the EUAA in November 2013 was seen as a victory by Russia, which had exerted much pressure on Kyiv in preceding months. [14] Yanukovych’s refusal was a sign that Ukraine had not yet committed to pursuing a European path, which would lead it away from Moscow’s vision for the region. However, as protests against Yanukovych escalated and the president was pressured by both his own people, and the West, to sign the agreement, Russia perceived Western encouragement of Euromaidan as an action which ‘undermined Russia’s privileged interests’. [15] The violent repression of the protests in Kyiv – perhaps even encouraged by Moscow - sparked outrage amongst protesters, and saw their demands widen from the signing of the EUAA to the resignation of Yanukovych. [16] The possible removal of Yanukovych, who was willing to work with Russia, presented an even bigger threat to Moscow: it could lose its significant influence over Ukraine’s government. Hence Russian narratives about Maidan being a Western-sponsored protest, and the overthrow of Yanukovych being a ‘fascist’ coup, can be traced back to Moscow’s belief that Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, belong in its sphere of influence. Moscow needed to de-legitimise the protests and Ukraine’s pro-EU leadership in order to perpetuate its narrative that Ukraine naturally leans towards Russia. Some Russian elites were convinced that Yanukovych’s overthrow was engineered by Western leaders in order to end Russia’s EEU plans and bring NATO to Ukraine. This was seen as a means of constraining Russia’s power and maybe even challenging the Russian political system. [17]

As protests grew and spread across Ukraine throughout winter 2013-14, the US and EU also remained determined to ‘influence events to gain advantage in their contest over Ukraine’. [18] Their attempts to resolve the situation reflected EU and US beliefs that Ukraine should take a pro-Western orientation: Western leaders urged Yanukovych to compromise with pro-Western opposition figures; the EU further pressured Yanukovych to sign the EUAA, offering financial incentives; and US officials were involved in attempts to reach a settlement between the government and protesters. Charap and Colton highlight leaked recordings which capture US officials attempting to select opposition politicians for the new government. [19]  

Despite their conflicting narratives, the EU and Russia managed to work with the Ukrainian government. By 21st February 2014 they had negotiated a deal in hopes to end the protests, which had escalated to deadly levels of violence. The deal would restore the 2004 Ukrainian constitution (curtailing the president’s power), set the stage for planned elections, create a weapons amnesty, and end the occupations of government buildings by protesters - effectively a ‘pacted’ transition. [20] The cooperation of the EU and Russia on this deal was possible because the deal did not preclude ‘victory’ for either side: violence and instability would be de-escalated, Yanukovych would remain in power for the time being (appeasing Russia), and the planned elections left Ukraine’s future geopolitical orientation undecided. However, the deal collapsed due to domestic factors: protests escalated, the police deserted their posts, Yanukovych fled, and the Ukrainian parliament impeached him. [21]

After Yanukovych fled, a new, pro-EU provisional government was cobbled together by protesters in Kyiv. This appeared to be a positive outcome for Western visions of the region, and a blow to Russia. The US was quick to legitimise the ‘victory’ of its narrative, declaring support for the new authorities. The EU was also quick to accept the outcome, regarding Yanukovych’s legitimacy as undermined in the eyes of the Ukrainian people. However, the OSCE had approved Yanukovych’s election as democratic, [22] and his impeachment did not technically follow Ukraine’s constitution. Russia highlighted these two facts in an attempt to highlight the hypocrisy of the EU’s supposed stance on promoting democratic norms, rule of law and constitutionalism. Russian narratives accused the EU of having questionable motives behind its democratising agenda. [23] Moscow framed the new government as a coup, supported by the West who deliberately wrecked the brokered deal in order to put in place a loyal government . [24] At this key turning point of the crisis, the US, EU and Russian evaluations of the situation appear more reflective of whether the outcome was of geopolitical advantage to them, than whether it was beneficial for Ukraine and reflected the will of the Ukrainian people.

Conflict and continued competition

Since February 2014, the Ukrainian crisis has significantly escalated. Although there is no longer bloodshed on the streets of Kyiv, Crimea has been annexed by the Russian Federation, and a swathe of the Eastern Donbass region is mired in conflict between the Ukrainian state and pro-Russian separatists, unofficially supported by Russian forces. Russian meta-narratives of the annexation and conflict continue to reflect the idea that Ukraine is part of Russia’s sphere of influence.

Putin framed the ‘coup’ on 22nd Feb as ‘creating a new playing field, as changing the rules of the game’. [25] Ukraine’s new government was seen as illegal, a new state, which nullified Russia’s existing ties and agreements with Kyiv. This key turning point was used by Russia as justification for military incursions into Ukrainian territory, in order to ‘protect’ Russians and Russian speakers it deemed to be under threat. Moscow can also be seen as taking advantage of a moment of instability in order to attempt to reassert its control over a key country in its sphere of influence.

In his 18th March 2014 speech marking the annexation of Crimea, Putin asserted Russia’s historical claim to Crimea and the Russophone populations of Ukraine. He cited the civilisational unity of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, and claimed that ‘nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites’ controlled the new Ukrainian government. [26] Putin repeatedly emphasised the close links between Russia and Ukraine, argued that parts of Ukraine used to ‘belong’ to Russia, and used legal justifications to legitimise Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Meanwhile, Russia framed Ukrainian attempts to restore control of the Donbass region as humanitarian crimes by the illegal government against its own people. In contrast, Russia’s actions were ‘humanitarian intervention’ to protect Russophones and ethnic Russians. [27] The fact that Russia would see itself responsible for intervening in this situation again implies that it sees itself as an important power in the region. The speech also made it clear that Russia does not see Ukraine as an independent, sovereign country.

However, Western observers saw the annexation of Crimea as a ‘textbook case of international aggression’, violating security norms, reneging on the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, and breaking the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership. [28] The prevailing narrative in many Western states with regards to the ongoing conflict is that Russia is trying to destabilise Ukraine and its new, pro-Western government, hoping that the government and its reforms will fail and the country will pivot back towards Russia. Cooley  points out that Russia has many instruments, actors and tools that can be used to exert its influence, and frozen conflicts such as the Donbass are one such useful tool. [29] Such conflicts enable Russia to play a role in peace negotiations, influence the different sides, and restrain states from actively joining NATO or the EU.

Since the annexation of Crimea, the West and Russia have ‘effectively doubled down on the very policies that precipitated crisis’ [30] - namely their geopolitical contestation of the space. Russia has become militarily involved in Ukraine in attempts to prevent the new government succeeding and Kyiv pivoting towards Europe. The EU and US have lent support to Kyiv in terms of aid, loans, NATO support, and access to markets, seeking to create a ‘reformed, secure, Western integrated Ukraine’. [31] All three powers are still seeing to secure and consolidate their influence over Ukraine. The result of this situation is a stalemate: the EU and US are trying to deepen Western integration with Ukraine and end what they see as Russian aggression; whilst Russia still has not relinquished total control of Ukraine, wants to see existing integration rolled back, and Ukraine veer from the path of EU integration and potential NATO membership. [32] The same narratives that pushed Kyiv to choose between Russia and the West, contributing to the Euromaidan, now risk perpetuating the crisis. Even if Russia and Ukraine manage to implement the Minsk II agreements, ‘the core contestation between Russia and the West will be no closer to resolution’. [33]

Conclusion: Where to go from here?

What is the way out of this geopolitical stalemate, with Ukraine caught between great power narratives that only seem to exacerbate the crisis? As discussed in this essay, Western and Russian narratives about the Ukraine crisis have created a zero-sum game, and the absence of common ground makes negotiating a compromise incredibly difficult. Moreover, a key flaw in all these narratives is that they do not prioritise what may be best of Ukraine, or what the Ukrainian people want. Merry compares Ukraine to an ‘international crime scene, like a neighbourhood cursed as the sparring ground of rival gangs’. [34] The current stalemate is damaging Western and Russian relations and having an impact on their economies and societies, but there is also a tangible, real human cost for Ukraine: thousands killed, tens of thousands wounded, and over 1.6 million displaced within and beyond Ukraine’s contested borders. [35]

Some scholars and analysts have highlighted the need for dialogue between the EU, US and Russia - not about the Ukrainian Crisis, but about broader questions concerning the metanarratives discussed in this paper: who has a right to control the post-Soviet space of Eastern Europe. Arbatova has suggested a grand peace forum between the different actors to deal with the ‘unfinished job of the 90’s’. She has suggested that the path to regional security involves guaranteeing the neutral status of key countries, the military de-escalation of NATO and Russia, and the reconsideration of plans for Eastern Europe’s economic development and EU association, taking into consideration Russia’s interests. [36] Cooley  has suggested that the West must take a new approach, respecting the sovereignty of CIS states, allowing them more room to maneuver between Russia and EU, and allowing EU and NATO allies to establish CSTO and EEU ties. He also recommends the mutual consultation of Russia and the West in the event of future upheaval in Eastern European states. This would enable actors to communicate their intentions, prevent conflicting narratives and misunderstandings leading to escalation.

However, suggestions about enforcing the neutrality of certain states, such as Ukraine, are problematic because they deny smaller states the agency to define their own foreign policy. Moreover, after such a divisive conflict as the Ukrainian Crisis, with polarising rhetoric coming from all sides, it seems unlikely that all states in the region would want to remain neutral, or pursue a bi-vector foreign policy. The time for such suggestions was pre-2013: that time has now passed for Ukraine, at least. It is highly improbable that in the near future Ukraine would again start to pursue bi-vector foreign policy between the EU and Russia, even if institutionally possible. Yet, given the persistence of Russian narratives about its sphere of influence and Western motives for incursion into Eastern Europe, Moscow is unlikely to tolerate a Ukraine which continues to shift towards the West.

The EU, Russia and US do need to create some kind of platform to engage with one another and discuss their visions for the post-Soviet space. They need to communicate their intentions for the region and work to dispel any misunderstandings about one another’s motives. Otherwise any progress made on the Ukraine Crisis is likely to be temporary, as underlying geopolitical tensions will surely rise to the surface again in the future. Space also needs to be made for other states in the region to pursue a bi-vector policy of links with Russia and the EU, if they so wish. However, it is crucial that Ukraine and other post-Soviet states are included in such platforms in order to express their own visions and concerns for their futures - particularly with regard to neutral status and economic development. History has shown us that when larger powers impose their visions upon smaller states, this can feed discontent, populism, and even lead to revolution, conflict and war. Failure of Russia, the US and EU to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and interests lead to the current crisis: any credible resolution to the crisis must address this issue, in addition to the metanarratives of larger powers.

[1] The name ‘Euromaidan’ combines the initial ‘European’ focus of the protest, and the Ukrainian word for a town square - 'maidan'. When the focus shifted away from European integration, many protesters and observers took to simply calling the protest ‘the Maidan’. During its later stages, the protests also became known as ‘The Revolution of Dignity’.

[2] A metanarrative is a narrative which ‘provides a schematic world view’ upon which an actor’s ‘experiences and perceptions may be ordered’ ( Oxford English Dictionary ) .

[3] E Wayne Merry, ‘The Origins of Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Clash of Russian and European “civilizational Choices” for Ukraine’, in Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine. , by Elisabeth A. Wood, William E. Pomeranz, and Maxim Trudolyubov (Columbia University Press, 2016), 27–50.

[4] Alexander Cooley, ‘Whose Rules, Whose Sphere? Russian Governance and Influence in Post-Soviet States’, Task Force White Paper, Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2017), https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/06/30/whose-rules-whose-sphere-russia... .

[5] Merry, ‘The Origins of Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Clash of Russian and European “civilizational Choices” for Ukraine’, 36.

[6] Robert Legvold, ‘How East and West Alike Compounded Ukraine’s Troubles’, The National Interest, March 2014, https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/how-east-west-alike-compounded-u... Neil MacFarlane and Anand Menon, ‘The EU and Ukraine’, Survival 56, no. 3 (2014): 95–101.

[7] Adrian Blomfield and James Kirkup, ‘Stay Away, Vladimir Putin Tells Nato’, The Daily Telegraph , April 2008.

[8] Roy Allison, ‘Russian “deniable” Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules’, International Affairs 90, no. 6 (2014): 1255–1297.

[9] Samuel Charap and Timothy J Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia (Routledge, 2018), 74–79.

[10] Charap and Colton, 77.

[11] ‘Geopolitical Challenges for the Post-Bipolar Europe’, Eastern Journal of European Studies 7, no. 2 (2016).

[12] MacFarlane and Menon, ‘The EU and Ukraine’.

[13] Legvold, ‘How East and West Alike Compounded Ukraine’s Troubles’.

[14] Charap and Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia , 118.

[15] Cooley, ‘Whose Rules, Whose Sphere? Russian Governance and Influence in Post-Soviet States’.

[16] Olga Onuch and Gwendolyn Sasse, ‘The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest’, Europe-Asia Studies 68, no. 4 (20 April 2016): 556–87, https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2016.1159665 .

[17] Allison, ‘Russian “deniable” Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules’.

[18] Charap and Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia , 123.

[19] Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia .

[20] Charap and Colton.

[21] Charap and Colton.

[22] OSCE, ‘Ukraine, Presidential Election, 17 January and 7 February 2010: Final Report’, 2010, https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/ukraine/67844 .

[23] MacFarlane and Menon, ‘The EU and Ukraine’, 99.

[24] Charap and Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia .

[25] Allison, ‘Russian “deniable” Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules’, 1257.

[26] BBC News, ‘Putin’s Full Crimea Speech Annotated’, BBC , March 2014.

[27] Allison, ‘Russian “deniable” Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules’.

[28] Cooley, ‘Whose Rules, Whose Sphere? Russian Governance and Influence in Post-Soviet States’.

[29] Cooley.

[30] Charap and Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia , 131.

[31] Charap and Colton, 133.

[32] Charap and Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia .

[33] Charap and Colton, 145.

[34] Merry, ‘The Origins of Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Clash of Russian and European “civilizational Choices” for Ukraine’, 46.

[35] Global Conflict Tracker , n.d., https://www.cfr.org/interactives/global-conflict-tracker#!/conflict/conf... .

[36] Alexandrova-Arbatova, ‘Geopolitical Challenges for the Post-Bipolar Europe’.

Russia escalates the war in Ukraine, aiming to complicate Kyiv’s defence

Russia opens a new front in Ukraine’s north, prompting Kyiv to respond with attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.

Russia escalated its aggressive war in Ukraine psychologically, tactically and economically in the past week, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted, “it’s a challenging moment”.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Russian soldiers had begun to train with the Belarusian military in tactical nuclear weapons, which the Kremlin has hinted could be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

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“An escalation is ongoing. What should we do in this situation? We need to keep powder dry, including these lethal weapons,” Russian official news agency TASS quoted him as saying.

Russian forces opened a new front in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region, seizing villages near the border – an offensive Ukrainian officials had warned about days earlier.

Meanwhile in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin named an economist to streamline his Ministry of Defence and nationalise Russian defence industries. Some observers believed that was an indication of Putin’s long-term plans to prepare Russia to fight NATO.

A new ground invasion

Russian forces opened a northern front on Friday, contesting territory they abandoned at the end of May 2022, after failing to capture Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s major northern cities.

Ukrainian and Western experts said it aimed to sow panic, divert scant resources before new US weapons arrived, and facilitate territorial gains in Ukraine’s east, where the fiercest fighting was taking place.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his Sunday evening address: “The intention of the strikes in Kharkiv Oblast is to stretch our forces and undermine the moral and motivational basis of Ukrainians’ ability to defend themselves.”

“[Russian forces were] likely conducting the initial phase of an offensive operation north of Kharkiv City that has limited operational objectives but is meant to achieve the strategic effect of drawing Ukrainian manpower and materiel from other critical sectors of the front in eastern Ukraine,” said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.

The numbers of Russian troops appeared to confirm this. Ukrainian military commentators Konstantyn Mashovets and Alexander Kovalenko said Russia had committed about 2,000 soldiers to the front line, with about 2,000 more in immediate reserve and almost 4,000 due to arrive within a week of the initial attack.

These forces struck at two points on the border, one bound for the settlement of Lyptsi, 18km north of Kharkiv city, and the other bound for Vovchansk, about 30km (18.6 miles) to the east.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed five villages on Saturday and another four on Sunday, although it was not clear if Ukraine had been fully in control of these border settlements beforehand. By Tuesday, Russian and Ukrainian forces were fighting inside the settlements of Lyptsi and Vovchansk, approximately 5km (3 miles) from the border.

“This week, the situation in Kharkiv Oblast has significantly worsened,” Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Currently, there are ongoing battles in the border areas … The situation is difficult, but the defence forces of Ukraine are doing everything to hold defensive lines and positions.”

The new front complicated Ukraine’s defence.

The general staff said 146 combat clashes took place across all fronts on Sunday – up from 84 four days earlier.

It was unclear if Russia’s distraction gambit worked. Its forces did inch forward a little on the principal eastern fronts of Chasiv Yar and Avdiivka on Saturday, but on Monday Ukrainian defenders cleared a Russian position out of a forest area in Bohdanivka, north of Chasiv Yar, to frustrate an encircling effort.

Russia has been gradually escalating for weeks, ahead of what Ukraine expects will be a major offensive this summer.

The UK Ministry of Defence estimated Russian attacks had increased by 17 percent between March and April, and that three-quarters of them were taking place in the east – where Russia has said its immediate goal is to complete the conquest of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Nor did the northern front come entirely by surprise.

Ukrainian officials had warned of a buildup of at least 35,000 soldiers north of the border. And Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, had announced Moscow’s intention of seizing Kharkiv city on April 19, as part of Putin’s plan to establish a “sanitary zone” 10km (6 miles) deep inside Ukraine, to keep Russian settlements outside the range of Ukrainian artillery.

Ukraine’s air defences are weak and its weapons stockpiles remain low.

Russia appeared to be using all its available resources to attack Ukraine during a window of weakness.

The US sent almost no weapons to Ukraine in the first four months of the year, because Republicans in Congress opposed US President Joe Biden’s $60bn supplemental military spending request for Ukraine.

Biden signed that bill on April 24, and weapons have reportedly begun to flow again, but Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Pavlyuk told The Economist that Russian forces enjoyed a 20-to-one artillery advantage in the east. Putin seemed to be pushing for territorial gains before US and European weapons brought Ukrainian forces back up to strength.

It was a similar story in air defence.

Pavlyuk said Russia enjoyed “overwhelming air superiority,” enabling it to release devastatingly powerful glide bombs on Ukrainian defensive positions.

Zelenskyy said 9,000 of these had been dropped by late April, a rate of 76 a day.

The Wall Street Journal calculated that Ukraine had shot down 46 percent of incoming Russian missiles in the past six months, compared with a 73 percent shootdown rate in the previous six-month period. A New York Times tally came to a similar conclusion: Ukraine was stopping fewer than half of incoming missiles, compared with 80 percent a year ago.

“There’s no doubt, there’s been a cost in the months-long delay in getting the supplementary budget request approved and the equipment sent out to- to Ukraine,” Blinken said on CBS’s news programme Face the Nation.

Ukraine’s deep strikes

Even as it fought the new invasion from the north, Ukraine continued to launch missiles and drones during the past week, which struck Russian energy infrastructure and harassed its lines of supply.

Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery and oil transshipment depot in Bashkortostan on May 9.

The following day, Ukrainian military intelligence said, it struck the Perviy Zavod refinery in Russia’s Kaluga region, which it had again struck a month earlier.

On Saturday, Ukrainian special services told the Suspilne new outlet that they had struck a Lukoil refinery in the Volgograd region. And on Sunday Ukrainian military intelligence said it had struck the Kaluganefteprodukt oil depot in Kaluga and the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in the Lipetsk region, while again striking the Lukoil refinery in Volgograd.

There was a further strike on Tuesday – this time on a train likely transporting fuel to the front in Samofalovka.

Putin appeared to be digging in for a streamlining of Russian military procurement and a refashioning of Russian defence industries, by appointing an economist as defence minister on Sunday.

Putin named economist Andrei Belousov as defence minister, shifting Sergei Shoigu out of the post he has served for 12 years.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the decision was linked to the need of “making the economy of the security bloc part of the country’s economy”.

There was also an economic priority in Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s proposal to name Industry Minister Denis Manturov as first deputy prime minister.

“The status of the deputy prime minister who is in charge of the industry sector should be elevated as it is crucial to provide technological leadership,” Mishustin’s spokesman, Boris Belyakov, said.

“These high-level reshuffles following the Russian presidential election strongly suggest that Putin is taking significant steps towards mobilising the Russian economy and defence industrial base to support a protracted war in Ukraine and possibly prepare for a future confrontation with NATO,” said the ISW.

Blinken’s Kyiv song choice raises eyebrows as Ukraine fights fierce Russian attacks

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Fresh from a day of delivering optimistic prognoses about how Ukraine would fare in the war with Russia despite gloomy news from the front lines, U.S. Secretary of State and amateur musician Antony Blinken may have thought he had the perfect upbeat song to perform with a Kyiv bar band on his fourth visit to the capital since the conflict began in 2022.

“I know this is a really, really difficult time,” Blinken told a packed crowd in the subterranean club Barman Dictat on Tuesday night.

“Your soldiers, your citizens, particularly in the northeast in Kharkiv, are suffering tremendously,” he said. “But they need to know, you need to know, the United States is with you, so much of the world is with you. And they’re fighting not just for a free Ukraine but for the free world, and the free world is with you, too.”

With those words and strumming a red guitar, Blinken and the local group 19.99 launched into Neil Young’s hit “Rockin’ in the Free World,” ostensibly to encourage Ukrainians to keep up the fight against Russia and hold to their Western aspirations, despite numerous battlefield setbacks that led President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a day later to cancel all his upcoming foreign trips.

With its refrain “Keep on rockin’ in the free world,” Young’s 1989 song sounds like it should be an homage to the glory of living in the West, uncompromised by communism or authoritarianism. In fact, as numerous social media critics noted, the tune is a lament about despair and misery caused by homelessness, drug addiction and poverty in the celebrated free world.

A charitable interpretation might be that Blinken chose to perform the song to underscore the importance of overcoming adversity by sticking to ones’ dreams of peace and freedom. After all, that had been the general theme of his remarks at events in Kyiv since his nearly pre-dawn arrival after an overnight train trip from Poland and it would continue to be on Wednesday.

“I’ve come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone,” Blinken had told an audience of students and educators at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute shortly before taking to Barman Dictat’s basement stage.

“Never bet against Ukraine,” he said at a Wednesday news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

But as Blinken sang the “keep on rockin’ in the free world” chorus, which is repeated 12 times in the 4-minute 40-second song, Russian troops were advancing near and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and Zelenskyy was in the process of deciding to put off a planned trip to Spain and Portugal later this week to deal with the crisis.

Thus, any intended musical encouragement — in both content and venue — left at least some observers scratching their heads.

Kyiv-based analyst Oleksandr Kraiev, director of the North America program at the Ukrainian Prism think tank, said Blinken’s visit was welcome but pointed out that he and many Ukrainians were puzzled by his two-day stay, including his stop at Barman Dictat, which was seen as inappropriate by some, given the current fraught wartime climate.

“From my point of view, and generally speaking from the point of view of common Ukrainians, it was not a very appropriate sign to go to the bar to have a small song with our band,” he said, noting that Ukrainian military recruitment officers are known to go to bars and nightclubs to check documents and catch draft dodgers.

“So (for the) secretary of state of the United States also to go to a bar, to have a small concert for people who are blamed for not enlisting in the Ukrainian army,” Kraiev said, “it’s not, let’s say, a catastrophe, it’s not a faux pas, but it’s something that is not very desirable from the point of view of common Ukrainians.”

U.S. officials with Blinken shrugged at the online criticism the secretary was receiving about his song choice and decision to sing at a bar. They also said he wouldn’t have done the event if he had thought it was inappropriate.

More broadly, the possible disconnect between the week’s battlefield developments and Blinken’s optimism was reflected in his activities and the size of his delegation.

Unlike on all of his three previous wartime trips to Kyiv, Blinken brought a full complement of staff and press with him. And while security was tight, he spent a good deal of time away from meetings with government officials, engaging with university students, civic leaders, local businesspeople and, of course, bar-goers. And, unlike on all of his previous visits except his last visit in September, he chose to spend the night in the city.

Yet, it may be “Rockin’ in the Free World,” its chorus and opening stanza — “There’s colors on the street; Red, white and blue; People shufflin’ their feet; People sleepin’ in their shoes; But there’s a warnin’ sign; on the road ahead; There’s a lot of people sayin’; we’d be better off dead.” — that the visit is remembered for.

As the band hit the opening notes, Blinken commented wryly: “I don’t know if we can pull this off.” And, then, according to the official State Department transcript : “(Music was played.)”

Samya Kullab contributed.

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‘So much death and upset’: the nurses quitting the NHS after Covid – a photo essay

Working as a nurse in the NHS through the Covid pandemic gave Hannah Grace Deller a unique perspective on the hardship faced by her profession. She has photographed several nurses as they decided post-Covid to leave the service

H annah Grace Deller works as a paediatric matron at St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, central London. She is also a trained photographer, and during the Covid crisis she began to photograph the conditions in which she and her nursing colleagues were working. Some of her images were published widely and exhibited at the time, earning praise from Grayson Perry, Martin Parr and others, and inspiring an album by Chris Difford, of Squeeze.

She has now published a book, Working on the Frontline , documenting the experiences of nurses and the reaction of the public during the crisis and since.

Hannah Grace Deller and her team.

Before the pandemic, I had never really taken photographs at work – just a few snaps if someone was leaving to say goodbye, that kind of thing. I had never really looked at my job in that way at all. Work was work, and my camera came out when I left the hospital as my way to relax. It’s like a form of meditation for me.

Then one day at the start of the pandemic, I was responding to a bleep when I saw a cleaner, in full PPE, trapped behind a door, and asked to take his picture . After that I thought, something is beginning here. We didn’t know how long it would last, I thought maybe a month. But, with permission from my colleagues, I thought I would document what was happening. I didn’t bring in a camera, that wouldn’t have been appropriate; I’d just take pictures on my phone and use my real camera outside work to document everything else.

The photographs, including this of nurse Steffie, are the first taken by Deller inside a hospital.

This was around the time that people were clapping for NHS workers, and that was sweet – though most nurses didn’t get out of work before 8pm to hear it. As time went on, I think lots of nurses began to wonder how much that goodwill was worth.

Nurses started protesting about pay and recognition during the pandemic. At one fair pay protest I started chatting with a nurse who said: “I’ve had enough, I’m going”. We’d had a pay offer of 1% and she said: “Surely, after everything, we are worth more than 1%.”

Thousands of nurses protested on 29 July 2020 to call for a pay rise, saying workers had been ‘on their knees’ during the pandemic.

I’ve always had an interest in photographing protests. It’s that spirit that you see in people, regardless of whether I agree with what they are protesting about. But with the nursing protests, it felt a bit different.

I began talking to other nurses on the protests, from all different hospitals, who had had enough. One of the people I spoke to was Camille, who is French but had lived in Britain for ever. With Brexit and then the pandemic, it was like a double insult to her, and she told me she was leaving nursing completely.

Nurse Camille moved to France post-Covid. She said: ‘What with Brexit, Covid and the lack of appreciation in the UK for nurses from the government, I’m done.’ She now runs an Airbnb in France with her wife and son.

We arranged that after taking her picture I would take her uniforms back as she had moved out of London, but when I got to her house, she had decided to burn them; she said it felt really therapeutic. There is a lot of trauma that can be held in clothing. A lot of the stains you just can’t get out of the uniforms, no matter how hot you wash them. As she was turning them she said: “There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears in that fire.”

Nurse Anna left the NHS and moved to New Zealand. She wanted to fold her uniform and bring it back to her workplace to say goodbye.

Nurse Natasha used to play the cello to the Covid patients.

Nurse Natasha left after the pandemic because of burnout and disappointment around the pay dispute with the government. She decided to travel with her husband. She washed her uniforms and hung them on the line as if for the last time. Natasha used to play her instrument to the Covid patients and sometimes when someone was dying she would play music on the ward.

Nurse Mila hangs her ‘RIP’ nursing dress.

There was also Mila – she wrote “RIP nursing” on the back of her dress. She now works on Portobello Road, in London, selling jewellery.

Ellie also worked through the pandemic but had had enough; I took a few pictures of her handing her nursing uniform back. She was in her 20s and she said: “I’m just too young to experience this, so much death and upset. I just want to go to Australia and lie on the beach.” There are so many untold stories like this.

Nurse Ellie brought her uniform to her job and handed it back to be put in the bin.

There is an image of nurses in which we are expected to be submissive and sweet, never raising our voices, just getting on with the job. We are not supposed to get angry, to speak up. But there is a lot of anger in these photographs.

Nurses throw their uniforms outside No 10 Downing Street to protest against the vaccine mandates in January 2022. ‘Clapped and sacked’ was the mantra; many felt they wanted to make their own decisions around vaccines.

Of course I feel that way too sometimes, but if I’m ever upset, or feel that I want to leave, I’ll often just go round and chat to the patients on the ward. And then I’ll remember, ah, that’s why I’m here.

Hannah Grace Deller was speaking to Esther Addley

Working on the Front Line is published by Image and Reality, and can be ordered through Kickstarter .

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