IT WAS EARLY IN THE EVENING OF 21 FEBRUARY that it became impossible to ignore that Vladimir Putin was planning something truly terrible for Ukraine.
Up to that moment, six months ago, many voices were urging calm in the face of increasingly insistent American and British warnings of a full-scale invasion. The French and German governments, Russian officials and even Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy suggested Putin’s troop buildup was a bluff.
Then Putin appeared on television, chairing a meeting of his security council in the Kremlin. Ordering his courtiers, one by one, to the microphone, Putin played at seeking their counsel, humiliating the few who hesitated to give the answers he wanted.
Ostensibly, the issue under discussion was whether Russia should recognise the “independence” of the socalled Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”. But that was just a pretext. Afterwards, Russian television cut to a long and rambling address by Putin in which he belittled Ukrainian history and statehood.
Three days later, in the early hours of the morning, the Russian assault began, with missiles raining down across Ukraine and ground troops pouring into the country . That fateful decision has changed Ukraine and the world irrevocably over the intervening six months. Thousands of Ukrainians are dead and millions displaced.
Russia has also changed, with the regime dropping the last vestiges of democracy and embracing full-fledged militarism, while the west has recalibrated its relations with Russia and Russian money, and many countries have begun an unprecedented military aid programme to Ukraine.
Denne historien er fra August 26, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra August 26, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Starlink's conquest of the Amazon leaves Brazil in a dilemma
The helicopter swooped into one of the most inaccessible corners of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian special forces commandos leaped from it into the caiman-inhabited waters below.
Dalai Lama's mountain town feels the strain of tourist boom
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After the final report of the Grenfell fire inquiry was published, Hisam Choucair, who lost six family members in the blaze, said: \"We did not ask for this inquiry... It's delayed the justice my family deserves.\"
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A darkly humorous encounter between an American spy-cop and the members ofan eco-commune she is hired to infiltrate
All work and no play
Hard Graft, a powerfulnew London exhibition, focuses onworkers’ exploitation, from the ruined hands ofa washerwoman to mothers forced to sell their bodies
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It should have been an Instagram-perfect wedding image, but it turned out to be something more embarrassing.