It was dawn on 24 February when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. A month later, peace still seems far away.
It all started at 6 a.m. with an announcement on the unified networks that Russian President Vladimir Putin had recorded a few days earlier and in which he said: ‘I have decided to authorise a special military operation’. The aim was to ‘demilitarise and denazify the country’. In those seconds, world history changed, giving way to a senseless war that is killing thousands of children, women and men.
Since that morning, so many images have flashed before our eyes, day after day. Every picture, a story. In every detail, something that has changed forever. We immediately thought and hoped that it could be a blitzkrieg, but instead it has become a massacre, capable of bringing back memories of horrors that we had known decades before, at the roots of our history.
In just a few days, the conflict has become a watershed with long-term consequences that do not only affect the parties involved. From the questioning of the energy transition to the revitalisation of NATO, from the flight of more than three and a half million people to the new balance of power, whatever the outcome of the conflict, tomorrow’s world may never be the same again.
A month later, we recall the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has become the face of Ukraine’s resistance. “I am target number one, my family number two, but I am staying here with my people,” he said soon after the invasion began. “Stop the enemy wherever you see him. The fate of Ukraine depends only on Ukrainians. No one but ourselves can control our lives. We are on our own land, the truth is on our side. It will not be possible to destroy our determination. Missiles are useless in front of our freedom”.
The Ukrainian people have rallied around their president and have never stopped believing in the strength of their country. So today, exactly one month after the start of the war, while some 4 million people (mostly women and children) have left the country, Ukraine continues to fight.