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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Ukraine crisis

When The Russia-Ukraine War Began: A Look Back At 24 Newspaper Front Pages

One year after the fateful decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, we take a look back at some of the front pages from the world's newspapers marking the the start of the war.

Bertrand Hauger

This article was updated February 24, 2023

"THIS IS WAR," read the front page ofGazeta Wyborcza. Alongside the terse, all-caps headline, the Polish daily featured a photo of Olena Kurilo, a teacher from Chuguev whose blood-covered face became one of the striking images of the beginning of the Ukraine invasion.

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A day after simultaneous attacks were launched from the south, east and north of the country, by land and by air, some press outlets chose to feature images of tanks, explosions, death and destruction that hit multiple cities across Ukraine, while others focused on the man behind the so-called "special military operation": Vladimir Putin.

With the battle arriving at the gates of the capital Kyiv, after the first 24 hours of combat, the most dangerous conflict in Europe since World War II had begun. French daily Libération may have best captured the world's reaction: "The Unthinkable."

While many Ukrainian dailies have seen interruptions in their print editions, the leading opposition newspaper in Russia, Novaya Gazeta, in an act of solidarity with its neighbors, published its latest paper in both Russian and Ukrainian. It's the first in our international collection of front pages below: