A new age was born in Ukraine. I saw its first beginnings in 2014, shortly after Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea, and then its full emergence as the Kremlin’s forces rumbled across the borders on February 24, 2022.

Putin’s act of savage imperialism unveiled a new brutal reality. The post-war world, in which states like Russia had at least to pretend to abide by basic international norms and Europe was safe under the umbrella of U.S. security guarantees, is dead.

Over the past two years, I have reported from all three fronts in Ukraine: southern, eastern and northeastern. What I have seen is not simply a land-grab by a sordid dictator, it is the emergence of a new global conflict.

Putin has returned industrial war to our continent. Once more, thousands of miles of trenches stretch across front lines.

Once more, tens of thousands of Europeans are dying on its battlefields. And back at home, we are still unprepared for what is to come.

Putin sent his army into Ukraine, assured by his assorted regime of thugs and sycophants that resistance wouldn’t last more than three days and that the would-be occupiers would be welcomed.

Of course, Ukrainians greeted the invaders not with flowers but with Western-supplied Javelin and NLAW anti-tank weapons. Their spirit and resolve stunned the world.

And in Washington, London and across Europe the strangest thing happened: Unity. We saw the bravery of the Ukrainians, and it gave us the resolve to help them.

Putin thought we would just stand by. After all, we watched him destroy Chechnya, rumble into Georgia and then steal Crimea — and we did nothing each time.

Meanwhile, he watched us lose in Iraq, do nothing while President Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people, and then finally scuttle out of Afghanistan.

The decadent West, Putin concluded, had no stomach for the fight.

But this time it acted. The United States sent billions of dollars of arms and aid. Even Europe stepped up.

Putin has always been clear. All he needs to do is wait. The West and its allies will tire; their countries are divided, their populations fickle.

The Russian leader has many advantages but, above all, he benefits from what I call the ‘despot dividend’.

Democracies plan with election cycles in mind. Their leaders can be voted out, their policies opposed.

But no one is voting Putin out. His people may suffer but they do so in silence.

Few are foolish enough to oppose his will.

Two years on, it looks as if he was right. The early days of Ukrainian successes are over. The turning point was last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive that promised so much but delivered so little.

In February 2023, Zelensky tweeted: ‘We know that 2023 will be the year of our victory!’ However, throughout that year, Ukraine liberated just 395km2 of territory, while Russia captured an additional 683km2; it now controls 18 per cent of Ukraine.

And in those occupied territories, a process of sinister ‘Russianisation’ is underway. Receiving benefits or services without a Russian passport is now almost impossible.

Last year, Moscow’s education minister Sergey Kravtsov announced that Moscow was ‘carrying out systematic work’ to integrate children into the Russian educational system ‘as quickly as possible’.

The Kremlin knows that Ukrainian youth are its future. The longer Russia holds these areas, the more they cease to be Ukraine. For Putin, waiting is winning.

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