“Today marks exactly four years since Putin started his three-day push to take Kyiv”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his special address on Tuesday, as his country entered the fifth year of Russia’s all-out war.


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“Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say: we have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood, Putin has not achieved his goals,” Zelenskyy stated.

In his address, Zelenskyy recalled 24 February 2022, describing it as “the longest day of our lives”.

“When we made it through the first day of the war. The longest day of our lives. Then another. And another. Then a week. Two weeks. And then – a month. And we saw spring”, Ukraine’s president said.

“And not because we are all fearless or made of steel – we are all human beings, and on that day, every one of us, all Ukrainians, felt fear and pain; many were in shock, and many did not know what to say,” he stated.

“But on some invisible level, all of us knew that we have no other Ukraine, that this is our home, and all of us understood what had to be done.”

Zelenskyy further praised the courage and sacrifice of the Ukrainian people who went to “defend the blue and yellow flag” instead of “raising the white one”.

“I really like the phrase that everyone was reposting at the time – a kind of summary of the first stage of the full-scale war, when Ukraine said: ‘You think I’ve fallen to my knees? I’ve just tied my tactical boots,'” Zelenskyy said.

Europe’s deadliest war since World War II

The fallout from the now-four-year war has been immense, with many European countries increasing their defence spending in anticipation of a possible confrontation with Russia.

Over the past years, Moscow threatened Europe regularly while refusing to come to any agreement over its invasion of Ukraine.

Talks between Kyiv and Moscow, relaunched last year by the United States, have so far failed to halt the fighting, which has devastated Ukraine and left it facing the massive task of reconstruction.

Leaders of Ukraine’s allies, including European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, are in Ukraine Tuesday to mark the anniversary.

Von der Leyen posted a video saying she was visiting for the tenth time since the all-out war began. She sought to reaffirm that Europe stood “unwaveringly with Ukraine, financially, militarily, and through this harsh winter”.

Von der Leyen also said she was in Kyiv “to send a clear message to the Ukrainian people and to the aggressor alike: we will not relent until peace is restored. Peace on Ukraine’s terms,” she said.

Hundreds of thousands killed

The higher end of the estimated number of soldiers killed, wounded or missing on both sides is 1.8 million, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The think tank estimates that Russia has suffered around 1.2 million casualties, including as many as 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025, making it the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II.

The BBC and Mediazona, an independent Russian site, have verified the deaths of at least 177,000 Russian soldiers through public obituaries and announcements by family and local officials, a toll also believed to be below the real number.

Zelenskyy said earlier this month that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, a toll widely believed to be an underestimate.

Neither side provides timely data on military losses, while independent verification is not possible.

Forced to flee when Russia invaded, around 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees live outside the country, and another 3.7 million are displaced internally, the UN Refugee Agency says.

The UN has verified over 15,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since 2022, although it says the actual number is likely considerably higher as it has no access to areas under Russian occupation, like the port city of Mariupol, where thousands are reported to have died in a Russian siege.

At least 20,000 children have been forcibly deported from Ukraine by Russia.

Widespread destruction

Entire cities in Ukraine’s east and south, among them Bakhmut, Toretsk and Vovchansk, have been reduced to rubble by Russian assaults.

The World Health Organisation has verified more than 2,800 attacks on healthcare facilities since 2022, while Russian attacks on energy infrastructure have cut heating and power to millions.

Around a fifth of Ukraine is contaminated by mines or unexploded ordnance, according to the UN’s Mine Action Service.

The total cost of reconstruction in Ukraine is estimated at around $588 billion over the next decade, the World Bank reported Monday.

Peace talks at an impasse

Since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House, several rounds of talks have failed to secure a peace deal.

The Kremlin is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions and a ban on Western military support for Kyiv.

Ukraine says giving in would leave it vulnerable to future attack, is constitutionally impossible, and unacceptable to much of Ukrainian society.

Russia, which currently occupies nearly 20% of Ukrainian territory, bombs civilian areas and infrastructure on a daily basis.

The bombardment has sparked the worst energy crisis since the start of the invasion, with plunging winter temperatures adding to the suffering.

Kyiv’s allies have slapped heavy sanctions on Moscow, forcing it to redirect its key oil exports towards new markets, particularly in Asia.

Despite heavy losses, Russian troops have in recent months advanced slowly on the front line, particularly in the eastern Ukrainian region of the Donbas, which Moscow wants to annex.

On Monday Putin insisted that his soldiers were defending Russia’s “borders” to ensure “strategic parity” between powers and fight for the country’s “future”.

In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Sunday, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin had “already started” World War III.

“Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves,” Zelenskyy said.