COMMENT | Feb 24, 2022, will forever be recalled as the day when Russia started its brutal, unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine. This was and remains a case of pure aggression and a clear-cut breach of the UN Charter.

This war is neither ‘just a European issue’, nor is it about the ‘West versus the rest’. It is about the kind of world we all do not want to live in: no one is safe in a world where the illegal use of force – by a nuclear power and permanent member of the Security Council – would somehow be ‘normalised’.

That is why international law must be enforced everywhere to protect everyone from power politics, blackmail and military attack.

One year on, there is a risk that people become inured to the...