Four years into the largest land war in Europe since World War II, the full picture of how it started, how it's being fought, and what it's costing is finally coming into focus.

Today, we are looking at the Russia-Ukraine War and how it has reshaped the world outside the battlefield.

Brett

Zelensky is pitching Trump on ending the war as the greatest legacy move available to him, but insists he won't accept bad terms — Ukraine may be open to territorial concessions and a spring referendum, but only if the US commits in writing to defending Ukraine against a future Russian attack, a guarantee that hasn't come. (Free for LBR Readers)

More than 100 interviews reveal how US and British intelligence correctly predicted Putin's full-scale invasion while Zelenskyy and most of Europe dismissed the warnings as scaremongering until it was too late.

Russia has suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties — more than any major power since World War II — while advancing at historically slow rates and gaining less than 1.5% of new Ukrainian territory since 2024, all while its economy shrinks and its technology sector falls further behind.

A scruffy former taxi driver in southern Russia named Aleksei Kolosovsky has become one of the Kremlin's most important sabotage operatives, coordinating arson attacks, cargo plane bomb plots, and criminal networks across Europe on behalf of the GRU. (Free for LBR Readers)

The war is cratering birth rates in both countries, Ukraine's fertility rate has fallen to as low as 0.8, while Russian women are ignoring Putin's cash incentives to have more children. Economists warn of severe labor shortages and economic damage for decades to come.

Four years after Russia expected a days-long takeover, the war has become a grinding conflict with stalled peace talks, collapsed US aid, drone warfare on both sides, 20,000 deported Ukrainian children, and no clear end in sight.

As a dual citizen of Russia and the United States, M. Gessen knows better than most what life is like under Putin. In this piece for the NYT Editorial section, they look Inside Ukraine four years on from the start of the war. The conflict has built a world capital of amputations in Lviv, exhausted a generation of soldiers and civilians alike, and quietly eroded the democracy Ukrainians took up arms to defend. (Free for LBR Readers)

I also recommend reading her book The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

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