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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has just posted on Telegram saying, “On 24 February, millions of us made a choice. Not a white flag, but a blue and yellow flag. Not fleeing, but facing. Facing the enemy. Resistance and struggle.
“It was a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity. And this is a year of our invincibility. We know that this will be the year of our victory!”
Russia’s Wagner group of mercenaries has taken full control of the Ukrainian village of Berkhivka, just north-west of Bakhmut, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said a few minutes ago on Telegram.
The Guardian has not verified this independently.
How will the war in Ukraine develop during 2023?
The Guardian has asked a panel of experts to weigh in.
Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan say we are in for a long fight.
This war is going to last for a very long time – that feeling dawned on Russians at the end of 2022. Most of those who wanted to leave the country have already left. The rest, the thinking part of the population, will try to adjust to the circumstancesin a state where even children are subject to compulsory propaganda in schools.
In 2023, the added feeling will be fear of those who enthusiastically went to war and now are getting back.Many will be angry and frustrated, and capable of further violence.
People will switch to a quiet survival strategy- something familiar to Russians who remember the Soviet Union. There will be an exodus into domestic life, to quiet conversations in kitchens, to a habit of being cautious about what you say publicly and on the phone or on social media. In short, keeping one’s head down.
The body bags arriving in Russian cities and towns will not add to sympathy for the plight of Ukrainians.
The rest of the panel’s responses are here:
Buildings and monuments across Ukraine have been illuminated in blue and yellow lights to commemorate the victims of Russia’s invasion.
In Kyiv, the main post office was lit up overnight during a light projection by Swiss artist Gerry Hofstetter.
Hofstetter is performing an art tour of the cities of Ukraine with illumination of buildings and monuments commemorating the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine.
The UK Ministry of Defence has posted its daily update. Today, it tracks Russia’s changing tactics since 2014, as it changed from subversion to invasion.
“In recent weeks, Russia has likely changed its approach again. Its campaign now likely primarily seeks to degrade the Ukrainian military, rather than being focused on seizing substantial new territory,” the ministry says.
“The Russian leadership is likely pursuing a long-term operation”.
Here is the full update:
Since 2014 Russia’s strategic goal in Ukraine has highly likely been consistent: to control its neighbour. Over 2014-2021, it pursued this objective through subversion, by fomenting an undeclared war in the Donbas, and by annexing Crimea.
On 24 February 2022, Russia pivoted to a new approach and launched a full-scale invasion which attempted to seize the whole country and depose its government.
By April 2022, Russia realised this had failed, and focused on expanding and formalising its rule over the Donbas and the south. It has made slow and extremely costly progress.
In recent weeks, Russia has likely changed its approach again. Its campaign now likely primarily seeks to degrade the Ukrainian military, rather than being focused on seizing substantial new territory.
The Russian leadership is likely pursuing a long-term operation where they bank that Russia’s advantages in population and resources will eventually exhaust Ukraine.
Zelenskiy has released a video as part of his message on the morning of the one year anniversary of the war:
China’s government has presented itself as a neutral party, one capable of easing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. However it has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, instead blaming the west for inflaming tensions, and some senior officials have repeatedly voiced explicit support for Russia’s aims.
This week the US government said it has intelligence suggesting Beijing is considering supplying weapons to Russia, and on Friday a report by Der Spiegel claimed Moscow was in negotiations with a Chinese company about supplying large quantities of strike drones. On Friday Beijing also abstained – for the fourth time – from a UN vote demanding Russia withdraw from Ukraine.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the US-based German Marshall Fund, said the paper was largely a summary of its previously stated positions and statements, which were “replete with contradictions”.
“Beijing claims to support Ukraine’s sovereignty, but it has not criticised Russia’s annexations of Ukrainian territory,” Glaser said.
Glaser also noted the last of the 12 points, which states China stood ready to help in post-conflict reconstruction, “sounds like China is keen to get its [state-owned enterprises] into Ukraine, both to make a profit and promote Chinese influence via commercial and economic means”:
More now on China’s position paper on Ukraine, released a few hours ago.
China’s government has called for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, while urging all parties to avoid nuclear escalation and end attacks on civilians, in a statement which appeared to maintain Beijing’s stance that the west is fuelling the conflict and was dismissed as anodyne by analysts.
The 12-point position paper on Ukraine was released on Friday morning, on the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, and ahead of an expected speech by Xi Jinping.
The paper, for which Ukraine was not consulted, was cautiously welcomed by Kyiv, but criticised by US officials and some analysts who noted the growing ties between China and Russia. On Thursday China’s top diplomat visited Moscowand pledged a deeper partnership.
The paper stated that the international community should “create conditions and platforms” for negotiations to resume, and claimed that China would continue to “play a constructive role in this regard”.
The paper did not address its suggestions to a particular side in the conflict, instead calling for all parties to “stay rational and exercise restraint”, and to “strictly abide by international humanitarian law, avoid attacking civilians or civilian facilities, protect women, children and other victims of the conflict”.
Some of the language appeared to be directed at the west. The paper warned against “expanding military blocs”, an apparent reference to Nato, and urged all parties to “avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions”, mirroring language that Beijing officials have repeatedly used to criticise the US’s support of Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has just posted on Telegram saying, “On 24 February, millions of us made a choice. Not a white flag, but a blue and yellow flag. Not fleeing, but facing. Facing the enemy. Resistance and struggle.
“It was a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity. And this is a year of our invincibility. We know that this will be the year of our victory!”
After a 30% contraction in its economy in 2022, Ukraine will need $38bn by the end of year to cover its budget deficit alone, Reuters reports.
“We need these funds for critical costs: funding of salaries and pensions, education and medicine,” prime minister Denys Shmyhal told a recent government meeting.
“For economic stability and a successful fight against the enemy, Ukraine needs more help.”
On top of that, Kyiv has said it will need $17bn this year for urgent energy repairs and de-mining, and rebuilding some of its critical infrastructure.
The European Union is expected to provide the lion’s share of funds, at $18bn, to cover the budget deficit. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stepped up calls on Thursday for increased financial support to Ukraine as the United States readies an additional $10bn in economic assistance.
Kyiv has yet to identify sources of funding to meet those additional costs.
It is now pressing for a multibillion-dollar borrowing programme from the International Monetary Fund, with prime minister Denys Shmyhal saying he hopes to agree a $15bn multi-year program. IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said on Tuesday lending to Ukraine could be “sizeable”.
Ukraine’s military has just released its latest operational report as of 6am this morning, claiming Russian forces launched strikes on dozens of settlements across Ukraine’s south and north-east in the past day.
Russian troops fired at more than 22 settlements in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region as well as more than 20 settlements in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to the latest intelligence report from Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces.
Russia conducted “several unsuccessful offensive actions” including on the sought-after eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, the military said.
About 25 settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region also reportedly fell under artillery shelling.
The military also said mobile operators had disconnected access to the internet across some temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.
In some areas of the temporarily occupied territories of the Luhansk region, mobile operators have disconnected access to the Internet network in order to prevent the transmission of data on the actions of Russian occupation troops and the fight against the patriotic Ukrainian population. Disruption of the Internet network must take place in all temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk region.”
“Russian warship, go fuck yourself”: these may be the most famous five words said in the war.
Ukrainian soldiers defending an island in the Black Sea from an air and sea bombardment reportedly told an officer on board a Russian navy warship to “go fuck yourself” when asked to surrender on 25 February 2022.
There were 13 border guards stationed on Snake Island, a roughly 16-hectare (40-acre) rocky island owned by Ukraine that sits about 186 miles (300km) west of Crimea, when Russian troops bombed the island on Thursday.
The exchange went like this, my colleague Luke Harding reported later:
Russian warship: “Snake Island. I, Russian warship, repeat the offer: lay down your arms and surrender, or you will be bombed. Have you understood me? Do you copy?”
First border guard to second border guard: “Well, that’s it then. Or do we need to tell them back to fuck off?”
Second border guard to first border guard: “Might as well.”
First border guard: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”
Soon after the conversation, the Ukrainian military command lost contact with the island. It assumed all of its defenders had been killed.
But days later it emerged that they had surrendered and were prisoners of war. They were freed in March that year.
In the meantime, Harding writes, the phrase “became a national slogan, a global meme and a symbol of Ukraine’s heroic defiance in the face of Russian aggression.”
You can read the full story of what happened to the men in Snake Island here:
G20 financial leaders must condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
Speaking on the first day of the G20 financial leaders meeting in Bengaluru, Le Maire also said that Europe was “thinking and working on new sanctions on Russia”.
Here is a video of the UN’s vote earlier on Russia withdrawing from Ukraine.
The United Nations overwhelmingly isolated Russia by calling for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace”, demanding Russia withdraw its troops from Ukraine and stop fighting. Marking one year since Moscow’s invasion, the resolution was adopted with 141 votes in favour and 32 abstentions. Six countries joined Russia to vote no: Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua and Syria. China abstained from the vote – accusing the west of “adding fuel to the fire” – a day after Beijing’s top diplomat visited Moscow and pledged a deeper partnership with Russia:
On 9 March, two weeks after the invasion began, Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol.
The image of Mariana Vishegirskaya, heavily pregnant in cheerful pyjamas, her face smeered with blood, became a beacon of Russia’s ruthlessness.
Vishegirskaya was later targeted by a Russia disinformation campaign accusing her of faking the injuries. The Russian embassy in London claimed in a series of tweets that Vishegirskaya had been employed as an actor to stage the photos, including a photo of a completely different woman being stretchered out of the hospital.
On 11 March, she gave birth to a baby girl.
Let’s take a look at some of the images that have captured the events of the last year.
The first is Zelenskiy addressing Ukrainians on 24 February 2022. Appearing shortly after midnight, Ukraine’s president urged Putin to, “Listen to the voice of reason”.
“The Ukrainian people want peace,” he said.
Later that day, as Russia launched strikes accross the country, hitting 16 cities, Zelenskiy spoke again.
Putin “wants to destroy our country, and everything we have been building. Butwe know the strength of the Ukrainian people,” he said.
A few days later, Zelenskiy walked streets of Kyiv’s government district defiantly, proving that, contrary to rumours he had fled, he was still in the country – where he would remain for almost the entire first year of the war.
Today on the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast: searching for the first casualty of the war in Ukraine.
Denys Tkach was killed in the early hours of 24 February 2022, an hour and twenty minutes before Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine. He was serving on a military checkpoint near the village of Zorynivka in the eastern Luhansk region. Was this the moment that the war really began?
The Guardian’s chief reporter Daniel Boffey has been looking into what happened in the final hours of his life. He tells Michael Safi about meeting people who knew Tkach and learning about the complicated consequences of his death.
Ukraine has responded to China’s publication of a position paper on ending the war, saying it is a “good sign and a sign that China wants to be involved in the global efforts to stop the war in Ukraine,” Reuters reports, citing Leshchynska Zhanna, the charge d’affaires at the Ukrainian embassy in China.
Zhanna also called for China offering more support to Ukraine, saying, “Ukraine would like to see China on its side, at the moment hina is not supporting Ukraine efforts.”
Ukraine has a peace plan which it hopes China supports, she said.
Earlier this week, Zelenskiy said that he had not been shown what was then being referred to as China’s ‘peace plan’, but that he would be open to a meeting with Chinese leaders.
In cities around the world, people are protesting and commemorating the war.
In New York, a silent candlelight vigil took place front of the Russian embassy on Thursday night.
Ukrainian refugees and locals gathered for a ceremony in the village of Grabie, Wieliczka, Poland.
Closer to home, a commemoration event took place at the Lychakiv military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, where family members visited the graves of fallen soldiers.
Here are some of the pictures:
Here is the full story on Shakhtar Donetsk’s thrilling – and very well-timed – Europa League win:
