Entering the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale war: the history teaches us that it teaches nothing

UKRAINE - In Brief 24 Feb 2026 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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Four years ago, in the early hours of February 24, 2022, Russian leader Vladimir Putin bought a one-way ticket to war. He believed it would be an easy journey, simply a matter of reclaiming what he saw as abandoned territory. The hardest part would be weathering a brief wave of 'deep concerns' from world leaders. Everything seemed to be in his favor: a Ukrainian president perceived as amusing but powerless, traditionally hesitant EU leaders, and a United States that appeared weakened after its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, Putin overlooked three 'minor' factors that ultimately changed the course of events in those pivotal days of 2022. First, unlike Russia’s rigidly vertical and highly centralized society, slow to mobilize at the grassroots level, Ukrainians maintain strong horizontal networks. These connections kept the country functioning in the first days of the invasion, even as the state apparatus teetered on the brink of collapse. Second, Putin did not anticipate that Ukraine’s newly formed military elite would act independently of the president’s public statements. As we now know, the General Staff was seriously preparing for war at the very moment Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reassuring Ukrainians that they would be enjoying their 'May barbecues'. Third, Ukraine had nearly 500,000 people with real combat experience from the fighting in Donbas since 2014 — a factor that proved decisive on the battlefield. What happened next is well known: the 200,000-strong force the Kremlin had assembled for this 'easy task' was shattered and driven back on all fronts. We then found ourselves dealing with Western partners who were alarmed both by the Ukrainian army’s...