The 24th February 2025 marks three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With each passing year, the devastation caused to Ukraine and its people has greatened, despite their remarkable resilience.
The impact is of course not limited to within Ukraine’s borders, with the ongoing conflict continuing to be a critical focal point in geo-politics, the tectonic plates of which have shifted significantly since 2022. While President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has resulted in the US and Russia recently opening discussions about the possibility of a ceasefire, strikingly there has been no seat at the table for Ukraine. Despite the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a rising dossier of evidence that war crimes are being committed against Ukraine, narratives around the war appear to be increasingly twisted to serve differing political aims. Within the last week alone, Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a ‘dictator’, while Zelenskyy has accused Trump of living in a ‘disinformation’ bubble. The next few weeks and months will be critical not only for Ukraine, but the future of the international rules based order.
Since 2023, we have been inviting FPC’s research fellows, as well as friends from our wider network, to provide us with their reflections on the war as well as insights into the impact it has had on their areas of focus more widely (see the 2023 series and the 2024 series). We have once again turned to our network as the war enters its fourth year, to produce another series.
This year, we are delighted to also be collaborating on this series with the John Smith Trust, an organisation that has been supporting leaders from across Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia for more than thirty years to achieve their vision for fairer, more sustainable and inclusive societies. JST’s Executive Director, Maija Paasiaro, and several fellows have contributed to the series, to provide their insights into the impact of the conflict.
Three years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, John Smith Fellows are focusing on systemic change and are at the forefront of Ukraine’s democratic transformation and recovery. In…
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine our immediate priority was to support Ukrainian John Smith Fellows in our network. This included amplifying their humanitarian work, showing solidarity and…
The call between President Trump and President Putin on 12 February 2025, left millions of Ukrainians in a state of silent disbelief, shock, and even grief. Along with the comments…
At a recent protest, when asked about the kind of peace he was clamouring for, a participant hesitated briefly before responding emphatically: ‘a peace to end all wars, a peace…
Every war is a war against children. However, in its war in Ukraine, the Russian Government has specifically targeted children as a tool to disrupt Ukrainian communities, and secure long-term…
Right now, thousands of Ukrainian children do not know if their parents are alive. Tens of thousands have been taken to Russia, while hundreds of thousands have been lost in…
Last year, on the second anniversary of the Russian invasion, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury published yet another list of sanctioned…
In the past few weeks, Europe has been hit with a series of shocks. Firstly, the Trump administration has threatened military force to take control of Greenland, the territory of…
Last week, the Trump administration met with Kremlin representatives in Saudi Arabia for negotiations that could pave the way for an end to Russia’s three-year full-scale war in Ukraine. Already,…
On the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the world continues to witness the resilience of the Ukrainian people. Among them, journalists stand on the frontlines of an…
There was a famous saying that all roads lead to Rome. Now they are leading to Kyiv, in all senses: geopolitical, geo-economic, value-based and rule-based order or at least in…
85 years ago, in December 1940, Franklin Roosevelt described the US as the ‘great arsenal of democracy’ in a broadcast made less than a year before the country decisively entered…
