SIX MONTHS OF HELL

IT WAS EARLY IN THE EVENING OF 21 FEBRUARY that it became impossible to ignore that Vladimir Putin was planning something truly terrible for Ukraine.

Up to that moment, six months ago, many voices were urging calm in the face of increasingly insistent American and British warnings of a full-scale invasion. The French and German governments, Russian officials and even Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy suggested Putin’s troop buildup was a bluff

Then Putin appeared on television, chairing a meeting of his security council in the Kremlin. Ordering his courtiers, one by one, to the microphone, Putin played at seeking their counsel, humiliating the few who hesitated to give the answers he wanted.

Ostensibly, the issue under discussion was whether Russia should recognise the “independence” of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”. But that was just a pretext. Afterwards, Russian television cut to a long and rambling address by Putin in which he belittled Ukrainian history and statehood.

Three days later, in the early hours of the