The Latest: Ukraine marks 4 years since Russia's full-scale invasion

It has been exactly four years since Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, attacking the country from multiple directions. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special operation," a campaign that many expected to be brief and to end with Kyiv's capitulation.

Instead, European officials are traveling to the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday to show their support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his country's people, who are fighting on.

While Putin did not get the quick and overwhelming victory he had hoped for, the cost has been high on both sides. And as Europe’s biggest conflict enters its fifth year, there is no sign of any peace deal despite U.S. diplomatic efforts over the past year.

Here’s the latest:

Latvia’s Foreign Minister Baiba Braže called on Tuesday for more international pressure to stop “the butcher in the Kremlin” and bring peace to Ukraine

Braže said there is no indication Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to stop the war and there would be no immediate peace without additional sanctions or restrictions on the Russian economy and efforts to degrade Moscow’s military capability.

“So, peace efforts, great. U.S. leadership, great. But then, also, pressure is needed,” she said after addressing the U.N. General Assembly.

Braže stressed: “Without China, Russia would have lost the war already.”

She said Latvia has told China that its dual-use supplies including chips, machinery and items for missile production are “what has enabled the war.”

The U.N. General Assembly called Tuesday for an immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine on the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion, after rejecting a U.S. attempt to eliminate references to Ukraine's territorial integrity.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Tammy Bruce said the Trump administration supports an immediate ceasefire but language on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would “distract” from ongoing peace negotiations.

After rejecting the U.S. effort to drop that language, the 193-member assembly approved the original Ukraine-drafted resolution by a vote of 107-12 with 51 abstentions. The United States abstained on the vote.

The resolution welcomes efforts by the United States, European countries and others aimed at ending the war. It expresses “grave concern” at intensified Russian miliary action against civilians and infrastructure, especially critical energy infrastructure.

General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they are an important reflection of global opinion.

The government of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni praised the Ukrainian people’s “struggle to defend their freedom and independence," and said Rome stands ready to support U.S.-led peace talks.

In a statement, the government also condemned what it described as Russia’s “unjustified and brutal aggression.”

It said resolving the conflict is essential to the security of Europe and of Italy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with officials of Russia’s top counterintelligence agency on Tuesday without mentioning the anniversary.

Putin told the officials of Federal Security Service, or FSB, that the threat of attacks against Russia had increased, including those carried out by Ukraine’s special forces. He said greater protection would be needed for energy and transport infrastructure, as well as for leading defense industry officials.

He also said that Russia’s adversaries were attempting to derail peace negotiations with Ukraine.

“They want to attack, They can’t live without it,” Putin said during his speech. “They absolutely must have the defeat of Russia. They are looking for any way.” He also held a minute’s silence in honor of FSB officers killed in service.

Ukraine’s Western allies offered Ukraine their “full and sustained support” on the four-year anniversary since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a joint statement.

Over 30 leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing held talks Tuesday via videoconference and in-person in Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the statement said. The group co-chaired by France and the U.K. is aimed at providing Ukraine with security guarantees once a peace deal is achieved.

They “reiterated their unwavering commitment to working together to achieve a just and lasting peace,” it said.

Leaders “urged Russia to engage in the discussions in a meaningful way, and to agree to a full, unconditional ceasefire.” They reaffirmed their commitment to ramp up economic pressure on Russia including through additional sanctions, the statement said.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesda y that a group of 11 South African men allegedly lured to fight alongside Russian soldiers in the war against Ukraine are expected to return home soon.

South Africa’s government said in December that it had received distress calls from the men who were trapped in Ukraine’s war-torn eastern Donbas region. The men had joined mercenary forces under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts, the government said.

Their travel to Russia appears consistent with other reports of African men who have been recruited to fight in the war against Ukraine, including over 1,000 from Kenya, according to an intelligence report presented to the Kenyan parliament last week. Four other South Africans returned home last week.

At least 200,000 Russian troops have died during Russia’s four-year invasion of Ukraine, independent media outlets reported Tuesday.

Russian news outlet Mediazona, together with the BBC and a team of volunteers, has collected the names of 200,186 troops killed in the war by scouring news reports, social media and government websites.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties. Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers.

European lawmakers cheered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who met with them on a videoconference during an extraordinary session of the European Parliament commemorating the anniversary of the war's start.

Lawmakers from Portugal to Finland praised Ukraine and blasted Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán, whose last minute objection sank new efforts to help Ukraine and raise the costs on Russia for prosecuting the war.

“He has become Putin's cheap servant — Viktor Orbán — in the last years, and also today has not only betrayed Ukraine, he has betrayed all of us. He has betrayed Europe,” said German member of parliament Terry Reintke.

While a few criticized Ukraine, an overwhelming majority of lawmakers lauded Ukrainian resolve, wore blue and yellow flower pins, blasted Putin and pledged continued support for the war-ravaged nation many see as a future EU member.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has paid tribute to the resilience of Ukrainians as he told his Cabinet that Kyiv’s allies “must defeat the falsehood that Russia is winning.”

“When this conflict broke out four years ago, it was assumed it would be a matter of weeks before Putin took the whole of Ukraine. That’s what everybody believed," Starmer said.

“Four years later, the Ukrainians are holding out against that aggression, holding out on the front line where the circumstances are extremely challenging, but also holding out in civilian life where every day Ukrainians get up and go to work as a sign of resilience and defiance.

Starmer said that over the last year alone, “Russia took 0.8% of land in Ukraine at a terrible cost to themselves, half a million losses.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia has not achieved all of its goals in its war on Ukraine, but that Russia’s operation would continue and that Russian interests would be secured.

When asked how Russia had changed over the last four years, Peskov said that Russian society had rallied around Putin. He also said that Russian society had matured in “understanding our roots” and “understanding what is good and what is bad in international affairs around the world.”

He said the past four years have been very important in Russia's history and that the country will move forward.

More than a dozen senior European officials arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in a show of support. But they also came without two new deals they had hoped to present to Kyiv — a new package of sanctions on Russia and a 90 billion euro loan to fund Ukraine's defense for the next two years.

Hungary, seen as most pro-Russian country in the European Union, blocked them both. It's a sign of how difficult it has been sometimes to maintain solidarity as the war drags on.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country has withstood the onslaught by Russia’s bigger and better equipped army, which over the past year of fighting captured just 0.79% of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

“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 said on social media.

“He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war,” Zelenskyy said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on the social platform X that “this war is a triple failure for Russia: military, economic, and strategic.”

“It has strengthened NATO — the very expansion Russia sought to prevent — galvanized Europeans it hoped to weaken, and laid bare the fragility of an imperialism from another age," Macron said.

Macron also urged the EU to issue the 90 billion euro ($106 billion) loan to Ukraine, a plan that requires the unanimity of the 27 member states.

“There is no justification for calling this into question. We must now deliver on it,” he wrote.

Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer were to join a meeting of Western leaders supporting Ukraine, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, via videoconference on Tuesday.

Britain’s Armed Forces Minister Al Carns says the war has been “the most defining conflict” in decades due to the way it has revolutionized warfare and upended Europe’s security.

“I would never have guessed in my lifetime I would see North Korean troops fighting on the border of Europe,” Carns told reporters on Monday. “Which I think is a significant warning signal to all of us.”

Carns said the conflict had brought a “revolution in military affairs,” especially through the rapid development of drone technology. Drones now account for the vast majority of battlefield casualties in the war.

Western officials say that in the last three months, Russia has lost more casualties than the number of troops it recruits, a potential tipping point.

“The cost on Russia has been almost unimaginable,” Carns said, calling a Western estimate of 1.25 million Russian personnel killed and wounded since 2022 likely an underestimate.

European leaders visiting Kyiv hailed the Ukrainian struggle.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Ukrainians are “standing up for the freedom of us all. Their courage and strength shine in the fight against Putin’s darkness. And they give hope to those of us who want a Europe at peace.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, said: “We don’t yet know when the war will end, but how it ends will affect Sweden’s security for at least a generation to come. And that’s why our continued support is so crucial.”

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski vowed from Kyiv that his country would remain “steadfast in its support for the Ukrainian people and in its pursuit of a just and lasting peace.”

“A victory parade was supposed to take place here after a few days,” Sikorski said in an address from Kyiv referring to Russia’s initial plans of a quick takeover of Ukraine. “Instead, four years later, Kyiv is still defending itself.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s allies will continue to militarily support the war-ravaged nation to end the war and ensure a lasting peace.

“Ukraine needs ammunition today and every day, until the bloodshed stops. Ukraine continues to blunt Russia’s aggression, and despite Putin’s posturing, Russia has failed to meet their ambitions on the battlefield,” he said during a ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

“There cannot be true peace in Europe without real peace in Ukraine. When the fighting eventually stops, the peace has to hold with strong Ukrainian forces ready to deter and defend and effective security guarantees from Ukraine’s partners: Europe, Canada, and the United States.”

A Chinese government spokesperson noted that the door to dialogue had recently opened in what she called the Ukraine crisis, avoiding describing the conflict as a war.

“We hope all parties will seize the opportunity to reach a comprehensive, lasting and binding peace agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said when asked about the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of the war.

China has been accused of not doing enough to pressure Russia to end the fighting. It has maintained ties and trade with Russia, relieving some of the pressure of economic sanctions. China says its position is impartial and objective.

“China never fans the flames or seeks to profit from the situation, and of course we do not accept any attempts to shift blame onto China,” Mao said.

Matthias Schmale, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, noted that the costs for the country’s recovery from the war are now estimated at $590 billion over a decade — three times Ukraine’s GDP last year.

Schmale said by video link to a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that over 10.8 million people, roughly a quarter of Ukraine’s population, remain in need of humanitarian assistance – including up to 1 million in Russian-occupied territory.

He also noted that Ukraine is one of the world’s most-mined countries, with almost a quarter of its territory “potentially contaminated.”