Zelenskyy says Putin has 'not broken' Ukrainians as country marks 4
years of Russia's all-out war
[February 24, 2026]
By ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — More than a dozen senior European officials were in
the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday in a show of support on the fourth
anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine — a grim milestone
in a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and put European
leaders on edge about the scale of Moscow’s ambitions on the continent.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was defiant despite the
devastating toll — insisting that Russia has not “broken Ukrainians” nor
triumphed in the war.
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,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that
Russian President Vladimir Putin has “not achieved his goals.”
“He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy urges Trump to visit
However, as the corrosive war of attrition enters its fifth year, a
U.S.-led diplomatic push to end Europe’s biggest armed conflict since
World War II appears no closer to finding compromises that might make a
peace deal possible.
Negotiations are stuck on what happens to the Donbas, eastern Ukraine’s
industrial heartland which Russian forces mostly occupy but have failed
to seize completely, and the terms of a postwar security arrangement
that Kyiv is demanding to deter any future Russian invasion.
In a speech at a makeshift memorial in Kyiv’s central square, where
thousands of small flags and portraits show photos of fallen soldiers,
Zelenskyy said he wanted U.S. President Donald Trump to visit and
witness for himself Ukrainian suffering.
“Only then can one truly understand what this war is really about,”
Zelenskyy said.
Trump, who says he wants the fighting to stop, has repeatedly changed
his tone toward Putin and Zelenskyy over the past year.
The war in Europe's somber numbers
The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides could
reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of
troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, a
report last month from the Center for Strategic and International
Studies estimated.
European leaders see their countries’ own security at stake in Ukraine
amid concerns about Putin’s wider goals and has demanded its leaders be
consulted in the ongoing U.S.-brokered talks.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on X that “for four years, every
day and every night has been a nightmare for the Ukrainians — and not
just for them, but for us all. Because war is back in Europe.”
“We will only end it by being strong together, because the fate of
Ukraine is our fate,” he added.
Putin's dangerous gamble
Putin believes that time is on the side of his bigger army, Western
officials and analysts say — and that Western support will trail off and
that Ukraine’s military resistance will eventually crumble.
But French President Emmanuel Macron described the war was “a triple
failure for Russia: military, economic, and strategic.”
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Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, centre, is welcomed by
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, centre right, as she
arrives in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Mads Claus
Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
The war “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 on X.
The war has brought widespread hardship for Ukrainian civilians.
Russia's aerial attacks have devastated families and denied
civilians power and running water.
It has drawn in countries far beyond Ukraine, giving the conflict a
global dimension, and threatened to worsen shortages, hunger and
political instability in developing countries.
While NATO countries have come to Ukraine’s aid, Russia has been
helped by North Korea, which has sent thousands of troops and
artillery shells; Iran, which has provided drone technology; and
China, which the United States and analysts say has provided machine
tools and chips.
A war with global dimensions
Among the European officials visiting Kyiv on Tuesday were the
President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, the President of
the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Finnish President
Alexander Stubb, as well as seven prime ministers and four foreign
ministers.
The only American listed among the official guests in Kyiv
ceremonies was Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, a U.S. officer who
represents NATO in Ukraine.
With Ukraine unable to sustain its fight against Russia without
foreign help, NATO countries are now providing military help,
purchasing American weapons after the Trump administration broke
with earlier Washington policy and stopped giving arms to Kyiv.
The European Union has also sent financial aid, but has sometimes
met with reluctance from members Hungary and Slovakia.
British Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said Russia's war on Ukraine
was “the most defining conflict” in decades.
“I don’t think anyone of us would be able to guess (when the war
started) the scale and size of what has taken place,” he said.
The war has brought a “revolution in military affairs,” especially
through the rapid development of drone technology by both sides,
according to Carns. Drones now account for the vast majority of
battlefield casualties, he said.
The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a new package of military
and humanitarian support for Ukraine, including sending teams of
British military medics conducting medical mentoring inside Ukraine,
drawing on battlefield experience from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The cost of rebuilding war-battered Ukraine would amount to almost
$588 billion over the next decade, according to World Bank, the
European Commission, the United Nations and the Ukrainian
government.
That is nearly three times the estimated nominal GDP of Ukraine for
last year, they said in a report Monday.
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Associated Press reporters across Europe contributed to this story.
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