February 24, 2022 was a day that changed everything: death rained from the skies, explosions lit up the dawn, Russian tanks churned up the Ukrainian border, and 200,000 pairs of boots marched on its cities.
It was a day that millions had dreaded, and millions more doubted would ever come.It was the day that Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. And in the year that has now passed since that fateful moment, nothing has remained the same.
Almost half a million soldiers on both sides are either dead, missing or wounded – torn up by bullets and bombs on battlefields that are eerily reminiscent of the First and Second World Wars.
Tens of thousands of civilians have perished as Moscow’s missiles hit hospitals and homes.More than 8million have fled into Europe as refugees, and millions more have been forcibly deported into Russia through filtration camps.
The bill for damage currently stands at $700billion and counting.
The conflict has reverberated around the world.It has seen energy prices in Europe soar. It has caused food shortages in Africa and the Middle East. Inflation has tightened purse-strings from America to Asia. A global recession now looms.
What was supposed to be a three-day ‘special military operation’ to topple Ukraine’s government, carve up the country and re-establish Russia as a global power has dragged on for twelve bloody and brutal months.And there is no end in sight.
Vladimir Putin, who once ruled Russia undisputed, is weakened, humbled, and facing the worst crisis in his two-decade rule.
He is forced to buy drones and ammunition from North Korea and Iran. He is kept waiting for meetings by the likes of Turkey, Qatar, and Tajikistan. Even China, which pledged a friendship ‘without limits’ before the war, shies away from doing business with him.
His health has visibly worsened – he grips table edges for support, twitches his hands, and fidgets nervously with his feet.He is rumoured to be terminally ill with blood cancer, bowel cancer or Parkinson’s disease.
The Russian economy rests on thin ice, weighted down by sanctions that threaten to break it. Would-be successors circle, biding their time: Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, spy chief Nikolai Patrushev, Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.
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Helena, a 53-year-old teacher, stands outside a hospital after the bombing of the eastern town of Chuguiv on February 24.This image became one of the iconic images in the early days of the invasion, demonstrating the human cost of war
People cross a destroyed bridge as they evacuate the city of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, during heavy shelling on March 5.The city was overrun by Russian forces in the early days of the war, and would be occupied for a month. The images of people – the young and the old – being helped across the wrecked bridge became emblematic of the human cost of the war
A heavily wounded Ukrainian soldier waits to receive medical treatment at a hospital in Bakhmut on December 5
Meanwhile Volodymyr Zelensky, an ex-comedian who cropped up as a footnote in one of Trump’s impeachment scandals, has become an internationally recognised war hero – mentioned in the same breath as Churchill.
Like Britain in 1940, Ukraine found itself on the morning of February 24 cornered by a superior foe – wildly outnumbered and outgunned.Even its friends were measuring its remaining lifespan in hours and days, rather than weeks or months.
But Zelensky rallied his troops, his nation and his allies to his side. A year later, Ukraine and its president are still here.They are not the same as they once were: battle-scarred and hardened to the horrors of war. But both of them cling to hope.
The West – led by the US and UK – has put aside old divisions, overcome fear, and united in a way that most people, especially Putin, did not think possible.Ukraine is now being provided with the weapons it needs: not just to survive, but to win.
Tanks and long-range missiles are being donated. Attack jets may follow. Kyiv’s troops are training on NATO bases to NATO standards, as the alliance stares down the Kremlin and prepares to welcome Finland and Sweden into its ranks.
Russia, meanwhile, has been forced to recruit murderers and rapists from its jails, conscript drunks into its ranks, and wheel out ever-more decrepit Soviet relics from its armoury for them to fight with.
Abandoned Russian military equipment is seen submerged in water in the Kharkiv region during the Ukrainian counter-offensive in September.Ukraine’s forces quickly regained hundreds of square miles of territory in the south of the country, dealing yet another blow to Vladimir Putin’s invading forces
Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a screen set at the Red Square as he addresses a rally and a concert marking the annexation of four regions of Ukraine Russian troops occupy – Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in central Moscow on September 30, 2022
The world’s supposed second-best military has been handed a string of humiliating defeats: the retreat from Kyiv, the sinking of the Moskva, the explosion of the Kerch Bridge, the rout in Kharkiv, and the liberation of Kherson.
Russia has now lost around half of the territory it once occupied in Ukraine.Zelensky and his Western allies believe the other half can be liberated too. He has promised his people that the war will end in Crimea, when the last Russian occupier marches out.
But Putin begs to differ.The war has not gone as he hoped, but it has not been a total failure either. His army still holds more territory than it did a year ago, and he is determined to keep throwing conscripts into the meat grinder until ‘victory’ is achieved.
Despite his dwindling stockpiles of weapons, he has some left that are capable of striking fear into the West the way he once did: biological, chemical, and nuclear warheads.
The threat of a Third World War – which loomed large on the day of the invasion – has diminished in the last 12 months, but it has not disappeared.
The first year of war taught us that Ukraine is capable of defying astronomical odds, but that even a weak Russian army is capable of wreaking mass death and destruction.
The second year of war lies ahead.The prospect of peace talks is remote. Both sides are facing months of hard fighting. It is impossible to know how this war ends, but it seems unlikely it will be over any time soon.
Here, MailOnline breaks down the invasion in chapters, from how the battle has played out so far to the suffering it has caused around the world; from Zelensky’s rise to wartime leader and swirling rumours surrounding Putin’s health to a look at how the war might finally come to an end.
Chapter 1: The day that shook the world – and how the battle has played out on the ground
As dawn broke on Thursday February 24, 2022, Putin personally gave his armed forces the green light to unleash hell.
A hulking convoy of Russian armour trundled across the border and bore down on Chernobyl, while masses of black attack helicopters swarmed the outskirts of Kyiv in a terrifying shock-and-awe display.
Military experts feared the worst for Ukraine as Putin built up his forces and finally ordered his soldiers across the border.It was predicted Kyiv would fall swiftly – within a matter of weeks, if not days.
One year on, we now know Ukraine’s capacity to resist was severely underestimated. Kyiv’s forces pushed the Kremlin’s invaders back from the capital in the first month of war, and instalasi gas medis have since pressed their momentum east.
Now, the war is in something of a stalemate, with the front lines scarcely moving after Ukraine made impressive gains with its counteroffensive.However, there are reports that Putin is planning to launch another offensive on Kyiv in the spring – or even to mark the one-year anniversary.
Amid reports that the Kremlin could mobilise 500,000 soldiers, the world could look back on the first year of the conflict as being relatively small in scale, compared to what was yet to come.
Here, MailOnline looks at how the front lines have ebbed and flowed through the first year of the war.
Russia dramatically fails to take Kyiv
After months of threats, Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine on February 24.Images from the first days showed bombs falling on major cities, including Kyiv and Kharkiv, and Russian tanks rolling through towns.
Russia’s elite paratroopers landed at airports near Kyiv and intense battles broke out for their control, while fighter jets, helicopters and missiles streaked overhead.
The region around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city that sits just 20 miles from the Russian border, fell quickly to intense bombardment.
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