Three years ago, in the early hours of 24 February 2022, after weeks of visible preparations and a crescendo of warnings from Western intelligence services, Russia launched an all-out military attack on Ukraine by air, land and sea. It was the first invasion of a sovereign state in Europe by another sovereign state since the Second World War and, by virtue of that very fact alone, it shocked the continent to its core.
In Europe we had deceived ourselves into thinking that such wars had been forever consigned to the past. That was disproved in the most brutal fashion possible.
