On Feb. 24, 2022, after Kyiv awoke to a series of missile explosions, Vladimir Putin appeared on millions of television screens seated between two Russian flags, his jacket unbuttoned, his posture relaxed, his hands resting flat on his desk.
¡°I have decided to conduct a special military operation,¡± he declared, calling on Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms and go home.
On that first day, he articulated three goals for what would in fact become Europe¡¯s longest and bloodiest war of the 21st century. They were: to protect the people of Donbas from what he called genocide, to demilitarize Ukraine and to ¡°denazify¡± it. He added that those responsible for crimes against civilians would be brought to justice and promised that Russia had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.
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