Invasion

Last winter, my friends in Moscow doubted that Putin would start a war. But now, as one told me, “the country has undergone a moral catastrophe.”

A team of Ukrainian volunteers say that, since the Russian retreat, they have picked up three hundred corpses.

I’m an American writer who moved to a small Ukrainian city four years ago. Today, it is flooded with refugees and astonishing solidarity.

Three years ago, Mark Peckmezian made vibrant portraits of youths on the streets of Kyiv and Odesa. “Now there’s nothing in the future,” one says.

In the days following the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, the letter came to stand for devotion to the state, murderous rage, and unchecked power.

An illustrator taking shelter in the capital gets updates from family and friends via text.

The immersive experience of Ukraine coverage makes us feel deeply involved in the conflict, even from a position of relative impotence in the West.

The central flaw in the West’s strategy was fearing that preëmptively confronting Putin would give the Russian leader a justification to attack—but it’s now clear that he intended to invade, whatever the U.S. and Europe did.

Residents are facing nightly air strikes, food shortages, and the prospect of taking up arms to defend the capital.

In Moscow, the small staff of TV Rain works through another endless night.

Lena Samoilenko slept through Russia’s first attacks on Ukraine’s capital, and has been fortifying her home since.

The West condemns Russia’s aggression as “barbaric” and “horrific,” as Biden warns that conflict could drag on for weeks or months.

The attacks confirmed that a real war is coming, one that will result in a horrific and bloody toll.

Putin claims that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. promised not to expand NATO beyond East Germany. Does he have a case?

For Putin, the current standoff is a chance to overturn what he sees as an unjust post-Cold War order—and create a new one in its wake.

A report from Normandy.