The Economist Continental Europe Edition December 24, 2022

Russia invaded Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s excuse for this unprovoked act of aggression was that he wanted to “de-Nazify” the country, a democracy with a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The invasion, which Mr Putin thought would end in a quick and easy victory, proved spectacularly incompetent. Russia failed to take Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Its vehicles and kit broke down. Ukrainians fought hard, picking off Russian fuel and ammunition supplies and pushing the invaders back. America and Europe supplied Ukraine with weapons, cash and intelligence. Russia shelled civilians, tortured captives, kidnapped children and made thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons. In the bleak midwinter Some 7.8m refugees fled from Ukraine; another 7m were internally displaced. America estimated that 100,000 troops on each side had died or been injured in the war and 40,000…

IT WAS A year that put the world to the test. From the invasion of Ukraine to covid-19 in China, from inflation to climate change, from Sino-American tensions to pivotal elections, 2022 asked hard questions. The ordeal has not only sent the world in a new direction, but also shown it in a new light. The biggest surprise—and the most welcome—has been the resilience of broadly liberal countries in the West. When Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24th, he expected the government of a corrupt state to buckle. After a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the decadent, divided West would surely fail to match condemnation of Russia with real backing for Ukraine. In fact Volodymyr Zelensky and his people affirmed that self-determination and liberty are worth dying…

IN NORMAL TIMES, picking The Economist’s country of the year is hard. Our writers and editors usually begin with a freewheeling debate in which they spar over the rival claims of half a dozen shortlisted nations. But this year, for the first time since we started naming countries of the year in 2013, the choice is obvious. It can only be Ukraine. The honour normally goes to the country which, in our view, has improved the most in the previous 12 months. So Ukraine is in one sense an unusual choice, in that life for most Ukrainians has grown spectacularly worse since Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of their country in February. Multitudes have died. Cities have been smashed and charred. Millions have fled their homes. Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by about…

ELON MUSK’s two months running Twitter has been an unhappy experiment. The social network’s 250m users have endured a wearying saga in which Mr Musk is the central character. Advertisers have fled. Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate. The damage has spread to Tesla, Mr Musk’s carmaker, part of the reason it has lost half a trillion dollars in market value since early September, costing Mr Musk the title of the world’s richest man. On December 19th it looked as if Mr Musk might throw in the towel, after Twitter users voted for him to step down as chief executive. It has been a costly adventure. But in one sense his turbulent stewardship of the social network has done…

ONCE MORE for the cheap seats at the back. That way the lesson may sink in. After a strong run from mid-October, stock-markets have tumbled yet again. The S&P 500, an index of American shares, has shed 5% since December 14th, when the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by half a percentage point and Jerome Powell, its chairman, said that policymakers had no plans to start lowering rates until they were confident that inflation was moving down to 2%. “The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy,” he declared. The end of cheap money caused drama in markets in 2022. Investors are hopeful that the chaos will soon be over and that a rate cut might come as soon as mid-2023. However, Mr Powell’s warning sounds like an effort to…

THE NATURAL world is a source of beauty and wonder, but it also provides humans with essential services. Jungles, savannahs and mangroves act as buffers against infectious diseases and storm surges. Forests channel moisture into rivers that irrigate crops, while their roots prevent landslides. At a gathering on Monday in Montreal, 196 governments from around the world pledged to protect and restore 30% or more of the Earth’s water and land by 2030. Lofty promises about preserving the world’s biodiversity have been made and broken many times before. One step towards avoiding yet more disappointment is to emphasise the close link between preserving biodiversity and the widely held goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions. The destruction of natural environments is depressing, relentless and hard to ignore. The area of coral reefs has…