Ten Most Significant World Events in 2022

1. Russia Invades Ukraine. Sometimes intelligence agencies are like the mythical Cassandra, correctly predicting events only to be disbelieved. Late in 2021, U.S. and British officials began warning that Russia would invade Ukraine. Many European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, dismissed the idea of war. But on February 24, 2022, Russia launched a “special military operation” that it said was needed to force the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.” To the surprise of the Kremlin and most military experts, Ukraine withstood the initial onslaught and then began to turn back Russian forces. Moscow abandoned its bid to take Kyiv and shifted to seizing the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. In September, the Ukrainians launched a counteroffensive that liberated the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Six weeks later, Russian forces abandoned the southeastern city of Kherson, spurring speculation that Ukraine might seek to reclaim Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014. Russia’s invasion exposed significant geopolitical divisions. Western nations rallied behind Kyiv. China and most countries in the Global South did not, despite their insistence that national borders are sacrosanct. Some even blamed the invasion on NATO expansion. They failed to explain, though, how an alliance that mustered less firepower on the ground than it did thirty years earlier and that one member leader said was experiencing “brain death,” suddenly threatened Russia. As 2022 ended, a ceasefire looked unlikely. Russia targeted Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, hoping that winter would do what the Russian military couldn’t, break Ukraine’s will. Meanwhile, the rest of the world struggled to adapt to the price shocks, supply disruptions, and food shortages triggered by Russia’s brazen aggression.