We think about war and peace like a light switch that's either flicked on or off. But Russia did not suddenly decide to swoop for Kyiv on a February night of 2022. To this day in fact, it still refuses to call it a war, sticking instead to the less definitive 'special military operation'.
And yet the writing had long been on the wall. And the actual war started long before. In 2014. Many through blindness or necessity refused to heed the warning signs. Even Ukraine’s president continued to downplay the intelligence reports. When does rivalry turn to hostility, hostility to war, and are we sometimes at war without knowing it?
Fast forward to the present and there's no doubting what to call this long, brutal slog with its hundreds of thousands killed, its nightly air raids, and freezing homes due to the targeting of the power grid. How long can a war last?
Or how long can peace last? Were the last eight decades the exception for a Europe that in that time went from the zero sum game of the Cold War to the enlarged defense shield of a U-S-led NATO?
As Washington's support for Ukraine now drops dramatically, what do the next four years have in store?
-
Robert PARSONS Chief international affairs editor, FRANCE 24
-
Vera AGEEVA GRANTSEVA Russian political scientist, Lecturer at Sciences Po Paris
-
Daryna PATIUK Director of Operations and Analyst, Eastern Circles
-
Gulliver CRAGG FRANCE 24 correspondent
English (US) · 