Ukraine marks fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion

It has been exactly four years since Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, attacking the country from multiple directions. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special operation," a campaign that many expected to be brief and to end with Kyiv's capitulation.

Instead, European officials are traveling to the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday to show their support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people, who are fighting on.

While Putin did not get the quick and overwhelming victory he had hoped for, the cost has been high on both sides. And as Europe's biggest conflict enters its fifth year, there is no sign of any peace deal despite U.S. diplomatic efforts over the past year.

Here’s the latest:

British says Russia is suffering terrible costs and is not winning

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has paid tribute to the resilience of Ukrainians as he told his Cabinet that Kyiv’s allies “must defeat the falsehood that Russia is winning.”

“When this conflict broke out four years ago, it was assumed it would be a matter of weeks before Putin took the whole of Ukraine. That’s what everybody believed," Starmer said.

“Four years later, the Ukrainians are holding out against that aggression, holding out on the front line where the circumstances are extremely challenging, but also holding out in civilian life where every day Ukrainians get up and go to work as a sign of resilience and defiance.

Starmer said that over the last year alone, "Russia took 0.8% of land in Ukraine at a terrible cost to themselves, half a million losses.”

Kremlin says Russia will keep fighting

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia has not achieved all of its goals in its war on Ukraine, but that Russia’s operation would continue and that Russian interests would be secured.

When asked how Russia had changed over the last four years, Peskov said that Russian society had rallied around Putin. He also said that Russian society had matured in “understanding our roots” and “understanding what is good and what is bad in international affairs around the world.”

He said the past four years have been very important in Russia's history and that the country will move forward.

European officials visit Kyiv in a show of solidarity

More than a dozen senior European officials arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in a show of support. But they also come without two new deals they had hoped to present to Kyiv — a new package of sanctions on Russia and a 90 billion euro loan to fund Ukraine's defense for the next two years.

Hungary, seen as most pro-Russian country in the European Union, blocked them both. It's a sign of how difficult it has been sometimes to maintain solidarity as the war drags on.

‘We have defended our independence’

Zelenskyy said his country has withstood the onslaught by Russia's bigger and better equipped army, which over the past year of fighting captured just 0.79% of Ukraine's territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

“Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say: we have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood; Putin has not achieved his goals,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

“He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war,” Zelenskyy said.

France's Macron says the war exposes the 'fragility' of imperialism

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on the social platform X that “this war is a triple failure for Russia: military, economic, and strategic.”

“It has strengthened NATO — the very expansion Russia sought to prevent — galvanized Europeans it hoped to weaken, and laid bare the fragility of an imperialism from another age," Macron said.

Macron also urged the EU to issue the 90 billion euro ($106 billion) loan to Ukraine, a plan that requires the unanimity of the 27 member states.

“There is no justification for calling this into question. We must now deliver on it,” he wrote.

Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer were to join a meeting of Western leaders supporting Ukraine, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, via videoconference on Tuesday.

A ‘revolution’ in warfare

Britain’s Armed Forces Minister Al Carns says the war has been “the most defining conflict” in decades due to the way it has revolutionized warfare and upended Europe’s security.

“I would never have guessed in my lifetime I would see North Korean troops fighting on the border of Europe,” Carns told reporters on Monday. “Which I think is a significant warning signal to all of us.”

Carns said the conflict had brought a “revolution in military affairs,” especially through the rapid development of drone technology. Drones now account for the vast majority of battlefield casualties in the war.

Western officials say that in the last three months, Russia has lost more casualties than the number of troops it recruits, a potential tipping point.

“The cost on Russia has been almost unimaginable,” Carns said, calling a Western estimate of 1.25 million Russian personnel killed and wounded since 2022 likely an underestimate.

Ukraine's European allies see Ukraine's defense as a larger fight for freedom

European leaders visiting Kyiv hailed the Ukrainian struggle.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Ukrainians are “standing up for the freedom of us all. Their courage and strength shine in the fight against Putin’s darkness. And they give hope to those of us who want a Europe at peace.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, said: “We don’t yet know when the war will end, but how it ends will affect Sweden’s security for at least a generation to come. And that’s why our continued support is so crucial.”

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski vowed from Kyiv that his country would remain “steadfast in its support for the Ukrainian people and in its pursuit of a just and lasting peace.”

“A victory parade was supposed to take place here after a few days,” Sikorski said in an address from Kyiv referring to Russia’s initial plans of a quick takeover of Ukraine. “Instead, four years later, Kyiv is still defending itself.”

NATO vows its support to ensure a lasting peace

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s allies will continue to militarily support the war-ravaged nation to end the war and ensure a lasting peace.

“Ukraine needs ammunition today and every day, until the bloodshed stops. Ukraine continues to blunt Russia’s aggression, and despite Putin’s posturing, Russia has failed to meet their ambitions on the battlefield,” he said during a ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

“There cannot be true peace in Europe without real peace in Ukraine. When the fighting eventually stops, the peace has to hold with strong Ukrainian forces ready to deter and defend and effective security guarantees from Ukraine’s partners: Europe, Canada, and the United States.”

China says it hopes for peace in Ukraine

A Chinese government spokesperson noted that the door to dialogue had recently opened in what she called the Ukraine crisis, avoiding describing the conflict as a war.

“We hope all parties will seize the opportunity to reach a comprehensive, lasting and binding peace agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said when asked about the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of the war.

China has been accused of not doing enough to pressure Russia to end the fighting. It has maintained ties and trade with Russia, relieving some of the pressure of economic sanctions. China says its position is impartial and objective.

“China never fans the flames or seeks to profit from the situation, and of course we do not accept any attempts to shift blame onto China,” Mao said.

UN estimates the cost of Ukraine's recovery

Matthias Schmale, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, noted that the costs for the country’s recovery from the war are now estimated at $590 billion over a decade — three times Ukraine’s GDP last year.

Schmale said by video link to a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that over 10.8 million people, roughly a quarter of Ukraine’s population, remain in need of humanitarian assistance – including up to 1 million in Russian-occupied territory.

He also noted that that Ukraine is one of the world’s most-mined countries, with almost a quarter of its territory “potentially contaminated.”