Yuriy Zarko, mayor of Bilopíl·lia, works about twelve hours a day. Whether delivering supplies to a retired woman, in a meeting about the Russian mines scattered around the area or visiting a courtyard where a projectile has fallen, this public servant, always accompanied by his drone detector, walks the streets of his hometown, which before the war had about sixteen thousand inhabitants. "Now there must be about six thousand, but we don't know; before the conflict I managed about twenty square kilometers of land, but now, due to the reorganization of the front, my responsibility has extended to 500. Many community leaders have left, but I have decided to stay, they are my people and I am the head of the council," he says with a vital and bitter smile.

The territorial dispute clouds the peace negotiations over Ukraine, now suspended due to the conflict in the Middle East. Although the recognition of the occupied regions as Russian is important for Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin's ambitions involve the Belarusianization of Kyiv, that is, its political subordination. Moscow wants a meek and friendly neighbor that poses no threat in itself to Russia, nor as a vanguard of hypothetical Western aggression. However, the Russian president missed the opportunity to depose Volodymyr Zelensky at the start of the war, and after four years of daily bombings, the advent of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine seems like a fantasy or a bad joke.

“Are there any men in the audience? No? What a shame! Take off your pants and put on a skirt!” With these words, the dean of Voronezh State University of Engineering, in southwestern Russia, tried to pressure his students to go fight in Ukraine. The Kremlin has demanded that the rectors of the institutions send 2% of enrolled students to the war. They promise them one year of service in a drone unit far from the front lines, astronomical salaries, and a secure future, but activists warn that it is a trap and that they are very likely to get caught and lose their lives. astronomical salaries and a secure future, but activists warn that it is a trap and that they are very likely to get caught and lose their lives.

The Russian military has carried out its most massive attack on Ukrainian cities since the start of the war. In 24 hours, it launched 948 drones and 34 missiles, killing at least four people and wounding around 40. The bombardment is aimed at weakening Kyiv's air defense systems, which rely on US Patriot missiles, now more difficult to replace due to the Middle East war. Meanwhile, Ukraine has again struck one of Russia's main export terminals, the Baltic port of Ust-Luga, in an attempt to stifle the Kremlin's growing revenues from oil and fertilizer sales.

The radars of the 49th Missile Defense Battalion, based in Fort Greely (Alaska)They detect the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) heading toward some point in the United States. They can't identify its launch point, but they know that in just over eighteen minutes, unless it's an error in the tracking satellites, it will impact its predetermined target. The military chain of command is activated, preparing to intercept it. The political structure is also set in motion to decide, ultimately by the president, whether to counterattack—against whom, but?—which could trigger a global nuclear war. This is the beginning of the gripping Netflix hit that premiered last October. In House of DynamiteFrom Kathryn Bigelow's film. In the movie, the chances of intercepting an ICBM in flight, traveling at a speed of six kilometers per second, are 61%. Do they manage to intercept the missile? No need to spoil it.

The prose of war is written in numbers. 555 deaths in two and a half days of attacks on Iran by Israel and the US, according to Red Crescent data. Among this trail of corpses are Ayatollah Khamenei (a tyrant who deserved his end) and a good portion of his regime's leadership, but the majority are civilians, including a large number of children, such as the 85 girls who died when a primary school in the city of Minab was bombed. "People die in wars. These things happen," Trump asserted, while broadcasting his propaganda messages for Operation Epic Fury (the names of American military interventions in other countries are always as pompous as they are ridiculous, and could fill an anthology). It's the same thing he said when he received the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi: "These things happen," Trump remarked.

During these four years of Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have mainly seen productions that humanized the Ukrainian army, showing the atrocities they suffered at the front and the survival of civilians in destroyed cities. This Tuesday, the BBC broadcast a documentary that focused on the other side: The Zero Line. Inside russia’s war. The result is chilling, as it denounces how the Russian army has gone beyond all law and common sense. It was recorded thanks to the testimony of civilians and soldiers who secretly recorded videos to support their stories. One of them states: "Your adversary is in front of you. But your enemy is the commander behind you." The high command of the Russian army leads its own soldiers to death, using them as mere useful cannon fodder. Military jargon calls it "meat storms." To refer to the sacrifice of their men, they use the word zero: the heads of each unit designate which soldiers are to be zeroed for the benefit of military tactics. The documentary includes images captured by drones showing these types of operations: groups of men are sent to the zero line – the one in contact with the enemy – to be shot at. This way, they identify the positions of the Ukrainian army and ensure that their ammunition is depleted. The battle is presented as a simple matter of numbers. The testimonies alternate with propaganda videos disseminated through Russian media to recruit more men. New soldiers who, as is easy to deduce, will also be sent against the enemy to keep the troops replenished. The horror of the documentary does not end here. The Zero Line. Inside russia’s war shows the cruel repression against dissidents. They can be humiliated at the front if they refuse to kill or move to the zero line. There are terrible images of naked, starving soldiers locked in an underground pit in the middle of the forest. They are thrown crumbs of food to humiliate them. They also explain how, before annihilating some Russian soldiers, they take their bank cards to empty their bank accounts. The stories of civilians who have demonstrated against the war or denounced the Bucha massacre are no different. They are arrested, raped, tortured, and sentenced to years in prison. Some of these actions have been recorded by the army itself to make videos out of them. The testimony of their partners is tragic and contrasts with the happiness reflected in old mobile phone recordings from before the war. They are Russians, victims of their country. A harrowing documentary of great informational value. The BBC has managed to provide, on an emblematic date of the conflict, a powerful narrative. It contrasts with the cowardly approach of TV3, which, on the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, dedicated "Sense ficció" to Steven Spielberg's film "Tauró,a testament to the journalistic ambition of our public television.

The war that has changed them all. That's how specialists and analysts often define the conflict in Ukraine, now entering its fifth year. Compared to the invention of radar in World War II, drone technology has forever changed the history of warfare, not only for those who fight in it, but also for those who report on it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has commemorated the fourth anniversary of the start of the war President Zelenskyy addressed the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine with a video recorded from the bunker where he and his entourage took refuge in the early days of the invasion. "Today marks exactly four years since Putin began his three-day offensive to take Kyiv. And that speaks volumes about our resilience, about how Ukraine has fought all this time," he emphasized.

Next Tuesday marks four years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Four years that have disrupted the lives of Ukrainian citizens far beyond those forced to take to the trenches to defend their country. Thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have died in this long war. Young and not-so-young people who had different aspirations in life four years ago. Who studied, worked, and enjoyed themselves like the young Europeans we know. For them, there is no longer a future. And the debate now in Ukraine is whether the ongoing peace negotiations, which involve very painful territorial concessions to the invader, will render their sacrifice meaningless, or whether the narrative will focus more on the fact that their resistance has allowed them to maintain the country's independence as much as possible.

This week, the Ukrainian city of Sumi It has suffered one of the worst attacks of the year. Just 25 kilometers from Russia and 17 from the front lines, the Russians launched kamikaze drones in broad daylight, which struck the city center and left dozens wounded. The attacks were concentrated on administrative and residential buildings for almost four hours. The scenes were of ordinary people running for shelter, panic attacks, and shattered windows. The cafes, spaces that have become a kind of sanctuary for Ukrainians in these last four years of war, where drinking a good cup of coffee is almost a religious practice, were also targeted.

From Saudi Arabia to Switzerland: exactly one year has passed since the first meeting between Russian and American representatives to end the invasion of Ukraine. On that occasion, Volodymyr Zelensky lamented the attempt to decide how to end the war without consulting Kyiv. A year later, on the cusp of the fifth year of the conflict, one might consider trilateral talks with both sides and American mediation, such as those that began this Tuesday, to be progress. However, Vladimir Putin's inflexibility, the resistance from the Ukrainian side, and Donald Trump's haste to score another international victory without considering the underlying issues of the conflict foreshadow a 2026 of more war and more peace negotiations.

Although Donald Trump has often been the focus of international public attention lately, we cannot forget Russian President Vladimir Putin, a far more shadowy figure than his American counterpart, since he governs a country without the democratic checks and balances of the United States. Russian prisons are full of dissidents, and every day there are reports of the closure of NGOs or organizations that, for whatever reason, are inconvenient for the regime. And all this is without mentioning the thousands of Russians who die daily on the Ukrainian front simply because of the imperial delusions of the Kremlin's occupant.

2025 was an extremely difficult year for Ukrainians on the front lines, but also for those on the home front. Civilian casualties from shelling increased by 26%. This is the conclusion of the Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) monitoring group, which recorded 2,248 civilian deaths and 12,493 injuries in Ukraine last year. According to the data, there were fewer attacks last year, but they were more deadly: they left an average of 4.8 civilians dead or wounded, compared to 3.6 in 2024, a 33% increase. The worst attack occurred in Dnipro on June 24, when a barrage of Russian missiles struck a passenger train, apartments, and schools, killing 21 people and injuring 314, including 38 children. According to the organization, this increase points to a change in the nature of the conflict: fewer attacks are causing more deaths. Russia is seeking to inflict more harm on the civilian population "whether through more drone strikes, heavier munitions, the specific targeting of populated areas, or repeated attacks on urban infrastructure." Air strikes primarily explain this increase in mortality, having risen by 126% compared to the previous year. Drones and missiles were responsible for half of all civilian casualties in 2025. In contrast, civilian casualties from ground attacks decreased by 44%.

I haven't waited until February 23rd. I've decided against timing my reflections to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Putin's attack. I prefer to write about the origins of this European tragedy. I will, of course, talk about Ukraine, and about the Russian and European perspectives on it, but not The Abu Dhabi peace plans are a never-ending storyI decide to backtrack and begin with a quote from the late Alexei Navalny. Words that say almost everything: "Once the war is over, Ukraine will have to be compensated for the harm caused by Putin's invasion." Terrible figures: a contraction of more than 50% of GDP; mourning for tens of thousands of dead, more than 100,000; how to repair the damage done to 6.7 million refugees. And how to achieve the return of the more than 20,000 Ukrainian boys and girls kidnapped by Russian units and treated as a weapon of war.

The war in Ukraine is the deadliest in Europe since World War II. But determining the extent of the losses on both sides is a difficult task. As in all conflicts, the government and high command prefer to hide or downplay the figures to maintain morale among their troops, so most analysts and media outlets rely on estimates.

The Russian military has launched its largest bombardment of Ukrainian cities since the beginning of the year, effectively ending the truce brokered by Donald Trump. In total, it deployed 450 drones and more than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, primarily targeting energy facilities and residential areas in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumi, Odesa, and Vinnytsia. Although the ceasefire was originally intended to halt attacks during a period of freezing temperatures, on Tuesday morning, when temperatures in Ukraine plummeted below -20 degrees Celsius, Russia left thousands of people exposed to the cold. At least nine people were injured, and nearly 2,000 buildings in Kyiv and Kharkiv were left without heat. The most significant damage was to power plants. One of the targets was a substation connecting the Rivne nuclear power plant in the northwest of the country with Kyiv and the central regions of Ukraine, which had already been bombed previously. In fact, its failure is behind much of the capital's severe supply problems. Russian aircraft also hit several thermal power plants and damaged critical equipment, according to Ukrainian authorities, in the ninth large-scale attack on the country's energy sector since last October.

At least 12 people were killed and 16 others wounded in a Russian drone strike in Ternivka, in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, local authorities announced. DTEK, the country's largest private energy company, said the attack targeted one of its mines and that the victims were workers who had finished their shift and were on a company bus returning home. The region's governor, Oleksandr Ganzha, said the drone struck the side of the vehicle. Energy Minister Denis Xmihal denounced Russia for launching "a cynical attack targeting workers in the energy sector." "The company bus was transporting mine workers, civilians who were not involved in the fighting. Another brutal attack with casualties," lamented Ukraine's ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets. The bus was about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the front line, according to police.

While Vladimir Putin was lashing out at Ukrainian cities, leaving their neighbors without heating, electricity, or water in the dead of winter, the cold has also chilled the Russians to the bone. Russian soldiers, who had been making remarkable progress for months, have seen their advance halted by the extreme conditions, granting Kyiv's troops a reprieve. This has deprived the Kremlin of one of its favorite bargaining chips in any negotiation: military trophies. With the front line stalled, even if only temporarily, the Russian president risks Donald Trump not seeing Volodymyr Zelensky's defeat as imminent as he would like to believe.

Once again, the script repeats itself: Donald Trump asks Vladimir Putin for a truce, and instead of rejecting it, the Russian president, surprised, accepts a watered-down version to appease him. Meanwhile, the supposed beneficiary of the initiative, Volodymyr Zelensky, learns of the news by surprise and is forced to put on a brave face, aware that it is a purely cosmetic measure, but that he must show gratitude for the gesture of the US president.