Tuesday briefing: The long and winding road of war in Ukraine, as the human cost mounts

In today’s newsletter: how the war looks from inside the country four years on – and what the west’s audience and leaders still misunderstandGood morning. Today marks four years since Russian tanks first rolled towards Kyiv as Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine – a war he insisted on calling a “special military operation”. The initial assault was repelled, almost certainly to his surprise, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government remained intact to marshal the nation’s defences.What followed has been widely perceived as a grinding war of attrition. While Russia has made incremental advances across territory it had already destabilised through Moscow-backed separatist republics, Ukraine has been subjected to a relentless aerial assault on its infrastructure – one that western support, from sanctions to air-defence systems and fighter jets, has not been able to halt. Peace initiatives – with varying degrees of sincerity – have come and gone.Peter Mandelson| Peter Mandelson