War in Ukraine

Ukraine: How Russia’s invasion set the EU on a new path to its eastern borders

The war in Ukraine has caused a huge shift in global geopolitics – especially in the EU, where the bloc’s approach to energy, security and migration has been transformed

Russian soldiers on a tank marked with the pro-war ‘Z’ symbol. Picture: Getty

It was 5am on February 25 last year when Ivan Fedorov got word that Russia’s rapid invasion of Ukraine had reached the outskirts of Melitopol.

The mayor of the southern Ukrainian city solemnly absorbed rolling reports from his officials of an attack on a military airbase just one kilometre outside Melitopol. Shaken by the sudden perilousness of his situation, Fedorov braced himself for the inevitable arrival of Russian troops.

“Over the next eight to ten hours, thousands of Russian troops gathered on the border of Melitopol with heavy military equipment. Then it started,” Fedorov told the Business Post in Strasbourg last month where he was attending the European Parliament to accept the 2022 Sakharov Prize for human rights on behalf of the Ukrainian people.