Two years have passed since Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The military stalemate between Ukraine and Russia appears to be continuing without any end in sight.
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The conflict has killed more than 10,000 civilians and wounded nearly 20,000 others, according to the United Nations. The cost of reconstruction is likely to run into hundreds of billions of dollars.
Also read | Russia’s war in Ukraine has inflicted ‘horrific human cost’: UN
As the Russia-Ukraine war enters the third year, it becomes imperative to reflect on the sequence of events that have unfolded during the war.
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Meanwhile, heads of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies on Saturday pledged to stand by war-weary Ukraine, and Western leaders travelled to Kyiv to show solidarity on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
After initial successes in pushing back the Russian army, Ukraine has suffered recent setbacks on eastern battlefields, with its generals complaining of growing shortages of both arms and soldiers.
The G7 leaders on Feb. 24 held a video conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the anniversary of Russia’s “special military operation,” which ranks as the deadliest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.
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Mr. Zelensky also posted a video from the Hostomel airfield together with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The Western leaders arrived shortly after a Russian drone attack struck a residential building in the southern city of Odesa, killing at least one person.
Outside Kyiv, the war continued unabated. In Dnipro, a Russian drone hit an apartment building and a rescue operation uncovered two dead. Meanwhile, a source in Kyiv said Ukrainian drones caused a blaze at a Russian steel plant, which a Russian official identified as one in Lipetsk, some 400 km (250 miles) from Ukraine, that is responsible for about 18% of Russian output.