Hello and welcome back to The Insider from our studios in London.
I’m Edward Carr, The Economist’s deputy editor.
Now next week marks the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,
and it’s been a terrible conflict for both sides.
There is one man who could bring it to an end, Vladimir Putin.
But instead of choosing peace, the Russian president just fights on.
With me to discuss this is Adam Roberts, our foreign editor,
Arkady Ostrovsky, our Russia editor, and down the line from Dubai,
Shashank Joshi, our defense editor, and from a hotel in an airport
in Denver is Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief.
Thank you both for being here and thank you for being in the studio.
Today I want to look at three things.
The first is, what has four years fighting achieved?
The second is, what are the conditions in Russia,
how do they influence Vladimir Putin’s calculations about what he should do next?
And lastly is, how if at all can this war be brought to an end?
Let's start with you Shashank because I want you just to look back over these past four years.
It’s an incredibly long time, longer than Russia’s Great Patriotic War
in which they got from Moscow to Berlin.
What have the Russian armies achieved this time?