Photo courtesy of Ministry of Defense of Ukraine via Flickr
As of Feb.24, Ukrainian military forces have held off against advancing Russian forces for a year.
Elizabeth Murray ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article mentions mass death and sexual assault.
Feb. 24, 2023, marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an action that has been largely condemned by Ukraine and the West as an illegal act of aggression, according to PBS. Since the invasion began, the United Nations has confirmed that at least 8,000 noncombatants have been killed, 13,300 have been injured and 14 million people have been displaced. U.N. News also acknowledges that these estimates are likely lower than the true number.
As reported in The Associated Press, the war’s impacts can be felt all over the world. From energy shortages to the rising cost of food, people far away from the fighting can feel its effects.
In February 2022, the outlook on the war was much different. The New York Times reported that many experts believed Ukraine would fall quickly, as Russian forces attacked Kyiv in an attempt to overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government.
“I remember talking to many former colleagues. I was working in Brussels before and diplomats from the member states, they all thought it was almost an agreement that the war will be over in a few days just, I think, as Russia did at the start. The intelligence reports were confirming that it's just possible Ukraine wouldn’t resist, and they were sort of thinking of contingency plans,” Cyrus Vance Visiting Professor in International Relations at Mount Holyoke College Natalie Sabandze said in a recent interview with Mount Holyoke News.
However, after weeks of fighting, Ukrainian forces managed to push Russian forces back, The New York Times reported. Starting in March, Russia began attacking the south of Ukraine in an attempt to form a land connection with Crimea. According to NPR, in the summer and early fall of 2022, Ukrainian forces managed to retake parts of the South and East, including the city of Kherson. Since then, the fighting has continued, and while neither side has made substantial gains, heavy assaults and counter-offensives are expected in the coming spring, NPR reported.
The war has led to an ongoing humanitarian crisis due to refugees fleeing the conflict and the civilian casualties in Ukraine. The United Nations estimates that 18 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as of February 2023. March 2022 was the deadliest month of the war for civilians, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights verified 3,326 deaths and 2,410 injuries occurred during that month alone. According to Sabandze, refugees from Ukraine have flocked in droves to nearby countries in Europe. “Europe came out of a very bad refugee crisis which was not so long ago. It is a very big issue, and yet they have been very welcoming to Ukrainian refugees, and there is a lot of effort put in place to somehow help them settle” Sabandze said. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Poland and Germany have received the most refugees as of September 2022, with amounts of about 1 million each. Most of these refugees have been women, children and the elderly, as men between the ages of 18 and 60 were barred from leaving the country.
The U.N. explained that living conditions in Ukraine have dramatically worsened, with 82 percent of children now living in poverty and 5.9 million people within the country currently displaced. In the long term, the U.N. estimates that 1.5 million children are now at risk for mental health issues like anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression as a result of the war. Disturbing accounts of abuse have also been reported by civilians, including torture and sexual assault.
As the war entered its second year, President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet with President Zelensky on Monday, February 20, according to CNN. The visit was meant to be symbolic of Western support for Ukraine, which Biden reaffirmed later in Warsaw, Poland. “I made it clear that the commitment of the U.S. is real and that a year later I would argue NATO is stronger than it’s ever been,” Biden said, as reported by CNN. “I can proudly say that our support for Ukraine remains unwavering,” he continued.
According to Vox, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization issued a statement echoing Biden’s declaration of support. The same article reported that France, Germany and the U.K. had drafted a limited security pact that will lead to peace talks. France and Germany, however, have been hesitant in fully backing Ukraine. Vox reported that Ukraine has applied for NATO membership, going against Russia’s terms of negotiation stipulating that Ukraine must remain neutral and never join NATO.
According to BBC News, as the war enters its second year, the fighting shows no signs of slowing down and is likely to continue into the spring and summer. Putin has suspended the nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, CNBC reported, although it is unlikely things will escalate to the point of nuclear war.
“Nobody’s going to risk nuclear war, but there will be other types of retaliation,” Sabandze said. Despite expectations that the war will continue further into this year, Ukrainians remain hopeful, as CBS reports that 95 percent of the country is confident in a Kyiv victory.