Within a couple of weeks of the start of the invasion of Ukraine, it became clear that it would not go as Putin wanted, who expected a swift Ukrainian collapse, in less than a week, to install a puppet government that would recognize Luhansk and Donetsk as independent republics or part of Russia.
Now, almost a month after the invasion began, the conflict has entered a period of stalemate. Russia has changed its strategy; it is playing at Ukrainian exhaustion with shelling of civilian targets and sieges of entire cities without compromising its own forces.
And precisely this period of stalemate is the most dangerous period of the conflict because it is when more civilians die; when more infrastructure is lost; and when the conflict ceases to be on the front page of the media. Just when the conflict escalates is when many start to forget about it. We cannot do the same.
