The destroyed fuel station in Stoyanka, Ukraine. Putin has been laying the rhetorical groundwork for the invasion of Ukraine for years.
Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
Putin’s rationale for invading Ukraine wasn’t built over just a few months in 2021. Putin and high-level Russia government staff have been trash-talking Ukraine for more than a decade.
Peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t be easy.
Mikhail Klimentyev/SputnikAFP via Getty Images
President Biden said that Vladimir Putin had committed war crimes, after news emerged of mass civilian murders in Bucha, Ukraine. Three stories from our archive explain what this means.
The body of a serviceman near a destroyed Russian military vehicle.
Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images
Estimates of casualties from the war in Ukraine have varied widely. Some of this is due to genuine difficulty counting the dead, but there are also strategic reasons to put out misleading death tolls.
Ruling clique: Putin with some of his top military and intelligence officers in Crimea in 2014.
EPA/Alexey Druginyn/Ria Novosti/Kremlin pool
The warring countries have a long way to go before a credible peace settlement can be signed.
Poetry matters: City workers in Kiev, Ukraine, protect a monument to Italian poet Dante Alighieri from shelling by the Russians.
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
What would allow Vladimir Putin to save face in Ukraine in terms of negotiating a ceasefire? Ukraine would likely have to cede its NATO aspirations as well as territory in the east.
EPA-EFE/Ukranian presidential press service handout
When Russia invaded Ukraine, its leader was immediately labeled “fascist” by Ukrainians and others. A political scientist explains why that label fits.
Belarusian volunteers receive military training at the Belarusian Company base in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 8, 2022. Despite the Belarus-Russian alliance, hundreds of Belarusian emigrants and citizens have arrived in Ukraine to help the Ukrainian army.
(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The Belarusian regime is bitterly despised by its people, but it survives through the use of force and Russian support. Belarusians don’t want war, and their country is also under occupation.
Resistance: Ukraine’s forces are putting up a stiffer defence than had been expected.
EPA-EFE/Sergey Dolzhenko
If this descends into a protracted guerrilla war, Ukraine has the skill and resources to hurt Russia badly.
Vladimir Putin celebrated Russia’s annexation of Crimea on March 18, 2022, the eighth anniversary of the move.
Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
None of the available methods for holding Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable are likely to actually punish him, and they may even make new atrocities more likely.
What psychology has to offer when it comes to peace negotiations.
A Ukrainian police officer is overwhelmed by emotion after comforting people evacuated from Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 26, 2022. History shows that wars launched for nebulous reasons generally backfire on those who launch them.
(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
It’s difficult for regimes to galvanize public opinion or maintain people’s willingness to accept the sacrifices associated with a war waged for questionable reasons.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill lights candles during the Orthodox Easter service in Moscow.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put a spotlight on the views of the Russian Orthodox Church. A scholar of Russian religion explains the structure and history of Orthodox Christianity.