Four years after Russia invaded Ukraine with its full might, how has the war changed its various protagonists? It’s a question worth asking, even with no immediate end to the conflict in sight.

To someone who has been visiting Ukraine for 35 years, before and during the war, its response has been astonishing. This was for decades the most frustrating of nations, a talented people thwarted and poisoned by levels of corruption so corrosive that the country was unable to progress. Russian aggression has made this nation, even while trying to destroy it.

© Bloomberg