Feb. 24 marked the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion into Ukraine for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation.”

Early in the morning of Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded east and west Ukraine with infantry divisions and missile attacks. The first fighting occurred at 3:40 a.m. Kyiv time in the Eastern Luhansk region near the village of Milove. Within the first 24 hours of the invasion at least 100,000 people fled their homes by car and train, waiting days to cross into the bordering country, Poland. Despite Putin’s claims that the assault was because Ukraine needed to be “demilitarized” and “de-Nazified,” Russia has committed war crimes including the Mariupol theater bombing on Mar. 16, 2022. The word “children” was spelled out in Russia outside of the theater, and an estimated 1,300 civilians were sheltered inside when Russia bombed the building, killing over 600 people.

The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin for unlawful deportation of children but, according to Ukraine, Russia has also committed over 58,000 additional war crimes. In October of 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with waves of missile strikes on infrastructure, causing large areas of the country to be without power and water. Russia’s aerial bombing, missile strikes, and tanks have caused “horrifying things in my hometown,” rising freshman Ellie Zelivinski said.

Throughout the past year nearly eight million refugees have been recorded traveling to neighboring countries seeking safety from the invasion. Poland, Hungary, and Moldova are among the countries taking displaced persons from Ukraine, Poland taking more than 1.4 million refugees themselves. Despite the current situation of refugees, displaced persons could be required to show citizenship to Ukraine and could potentially be subject to border searches. This Russian invasion has caused one of the largest and fastest displacement of people since World War II.“My step-grandfather was forced to flee the country to Poland,” senior Julia Lvovsky said.

OnMar. 20, China’s President Xi Jinping met with Putin in Moscow showing China’s support to Russia during the invasion, calling the meeting a journey of friendship, cooperation and peace as Jinping called Putin his “dear friend.” The two presidents on Mar. 21 signed a joint statement on the “Russia-China strategic operation,” and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) said they’d seen signs that Russia has requested military aid from China. Similarly, on Mar. 21 Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to show Japan’s “unwavering support for Ukraine.”

The U.S. has given Ukraine over $46.6 billion in terms of humanitarian aid, weapons and equipment, security assistance and financial aid. The U.S. has supplied Ukraine with infantry arms, air defense, air to ground missiles, artillery, tanks, manned aircrafts, surveillance drones, coastal defense, and more. Putin claims that the U.S. is sustaining the war in Ukraine by supplying the military with resources to continue fighting against Russia. Despite the aid from the EU and UK, there are a verified 8,317 civilian casualties and 13,892 injuries as of Mar. 19 and over 10,000 military casualties. “What’s going on is terrible and we worry every day for people living there,” freshman Jenny Brailovsky said.