Four Years of Destruction: The War in Ukraine’s Development and Unlikely End
February 24, 2026 commemorated the fourth anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Europe’s largest and bloodiest conflict since World War II now continues into another grueling year with no peace in sight, as Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy accuses Russia of “dragging out negotiations” in Geneva. As of early March 2026, Ukraine and Russia have stepped away from the latest round of U.S.-mediated peace talks without a conclusive breakthrough. In considering this most recent anniversary, one can’t help but wonder whether Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to be in this position, and all signs point to no.
Early in the morning of February 24, 2022, Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine with the explicit goal to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine and protect the rebel states of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Putin had just recognized as independent from Ukraine days prior. In an inaccurate retelling of events, Putin framed modern-day Ukraine as a Nazi state, and demanded that the Kyiv “regime” be dismantled and held accountable for alleged genocidal atrocities, specifically against the Russian-speaking minority. The Kremlin’s accusations are immensely ironic for Ukrainians, as Ukraine was ravaged by Stalin’s man-made genocide-famine known as the Holodomor in 1933-1934. The Holodomor has since been recognized as a genocide by the European Parliament and more than 30 UN member states.
Putin also aggressively affirmed that Ukraine lacks an independent identity, culture, or linguistic tradition, insisting that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.” Within minutes of Putin concluding his speech on February 24, 2022, missiles were launched and Russian troops streamed into Ukraine after months of massing along the border. It is widely reported that Putin anticipated taking Ukraine, by way of besieging Kyiv, in just three days. Accounts of Russian soldiers equipped with three day’s worth of food and victorious parade uniforms in Kyiv are abundant. Yet, the Kremlin’s aggressive blitzkrieg failed. Scholars have partially attributed this failure to Putin’s crippling underestimation of Ukrainian military and political capacity. The Russian military also suffered from inaccurate intelligence on the status of Ukraine’s military capability. After the largest military mobilization in Europe since World War II, Russia and Ukraine have both experienced significant losses, and appear to be as far from a solution as ever before.
This conflict has degenerated into a war of attrition for both Russia and Ukraine, each hoping that they can outlast and outfight the other long enough for a favorable peace to be made. After his initial failures, Putin pivoted his strategy to systematically target Ukrainian civilian infrastructure to slowly break down military capacity and citizen morale. Russia has amassed 1.2 million casualties, including those killed, wounded, and missing, over the duration of the war, while Ukraine suffered roughly 600,000 casualties. In 2025, researchers found that civilian casualties in Ukraine increased by 26 percent, largely due to the Russian military increasingly targeting cities and infrastructure sites. Continuing into 2026, Russia targeted Ukraine with more than 300 drones and missiles, severely damaging Ukraine’s power grid. A recent assault eliminated heating in more than 5,600 apartments in Kyiv. This strategy has been a hallmark of the Russian invasion since its commencement in 2022, with the explicit goal of “freezing Ukrainians out” to weaken resistance. This particularly cruel military strategy—as January temperatures can dip as low as 15 degrees below zero Celcius—shows Russia’s clear commitment to continuing the war, despite renewed peace talks since November of 2025.
Scholars of genocide and Russo-Ukrainian history, Such as Timothy Snyder, are increasingly struck by the immense caseload of Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Snyder has presented in front of the UN Security Council with his findings, and continues to research and advocate for Ukraine’s survival as a nation. For instance, Russian soldiers have intentionally attacked civilians with the goal of destruction. Furthermore, hundreds of Ukrainian women have reported instances of sexual violence by Russian troops, with individual experiences that detail uniquely violent and cruel methods of sexual and psychological torture. Additional allegations arose of Putin’s explicit interest in “stealing” Ukraine’s children in an attempt to Russify and militarize them for the Kremlin’s use. Ukraine has verified the forced deportation of 19,456 Ukrainian children, though the true statistic is presumed to be far more staggering, as Russia is known to target at-risk children.
On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine, millions stood in solidarity with Ukraine, particularly in Europe. Various monuments were alight with blue and yellow, and world leaders expressed their solidarity with Ukraine and desire for peace and Ukrainian sovereignty. Top EU leaders visited Kyiv and met with President Zelenskyy to reaffirm the EU’s continued economic, political, and military support of Ukraine. Despite this, Ukraine is not an EU member-state, though Ukraine is under official candidacy for the position. The primary reason for Ukraine’s non-membership is its active engagement with Russia, which would invoke the EU’s mutual defense obligations to all member nations. In recent weeks, Ukraine has pushed to gain EU membership in 2027, as part of an ultimate peace deal with Russia. Yet, major EU players such as France and Germany remain skeptical and want to see more reform, specifically in elections, from Ukraine before fast-tracked membership is considered. Russia’s war in Ukraine is not only a high-intensity military assault; its impact on Europe and international relations is astounding, as it extends to impact world relations into the foreseeable future.