SIX MONTHS OF HELL

After half a year of fighting, thousands are dead and millions displaced. Peace talks have stalled. Where do we go from here?

- Shaun Walker

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.