MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the fourth anniversary of his 72-hour special military operation Monday by doing the only thing he knows how to do on a Monday, which is launch a fresh wave of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian power grid.
The strikes, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov described as ‘routine maintenance on a project nearing completion,’ targeted substations in Kharkiv, Odesa, and three cities a Russian general had to ask an aide to point out on a map. Officials in Kyiv counted at least 71 incoming projectiles, which is roughly the same number Russia launched on the operation’s third birthday, second birthday, and original three-day deadline.
‘We are right on track,’ said Peskov, standing in front of a calendar that has been wrong for 1,461 consecutive days. ‘The timeline is the timeline. We do not discuss the timeline.’
State television commemorated the milestone with a four-hour panel in which retired generals took turns explaining that the war is going extremely well and also that Russia is fighting NATO, Britain, the entire European Union, the ghost of Zbigniew Brzezinski, and a teenager in Lviv with a commercial drone. A graphic behind the panelists tallied Russian advances in meters per week, a unit of measurement adopted in 2023 after kilometers per week became insulting.
Konstantin Aristarkhov, a senior fellow at the Eurasia Continuity Institute in St. Petersburg, told reporters the operation remains ‘fundamentally on schedule, provided the schedule is understood as a feeling rather than a duration.’ He added that Russia has now lost more soldiers in Ukraine than the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan, which he characterized as ‘a strong showing.’
In Washington, the administration acknowledged the anniversary by announcing it would consider whether to consider whether to release the next tranche of aid Congress already approved. A State Department spokesperson, asked about Ukraine’s chances heading into year five, said the United States remains ‘absolutely committed to the principle of issuing statements,’ and noted that a strongly worded one was being drafted as she spoke.
European leaders gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit, the eleventh such emergency summit in fourteen months, where they agreed to agree to a framework for agreeing on a path toward potentially agreeing on a 19th sanctions package by summer, possibly. French President Emmanuel Macron called the talks ‘a turning point,’ a phrase that has now been used by France 47 times since 2022 without anything turning.
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the anniversary in his customary olive-green fleece by thanking partners, requesting Patriot batteries, and pointing out, for the fourth February in a row, that the missiles do not stop for anniversaries and neither does he.
At Red Square, a small military parade rolled past the Kremlin featuring T-90 tanks, a Yars ICBM launcher, and one visibly embarrassed BMP-1 from 1968 that organizers said had been included ‘for historical context.’ Putin watched from the reviewing stand, smiling the specific smile of a man who has successfully convinced himself the calendar is the one that’s broken.