The unthinkable — a multi-year shooting war with tanks, trenches, drones and vast waves of refugees — is playing out in the heart of Europe, amid mounting fears the raging war in Ukraine will pit Russia and its allies against the U.S. and Western-aligned democracies around the world for decades to come.

To mark the anniversary of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Wolfgang deliver “No end in sight: One year into Vladimir Putin’s war,” a special series taking stock of the conflict and how it is likely to proceed.

Mr. Taylor goes inside Mr. Putin’s mindset in Part I, highlighting an exclusive interview with Ken Dekleva, a former State Department regional medical officer/psychiatrist, who argues the Russian leader can best be characterized by “three Rs: rational, ruthless and resilient, and in his case, a fourth ’R’ — revanchist.”

For Part II, Mr. Wolfgang examines the cut-throat internal political dynamics facing Mr. Putin in Moscow. The report notes that a Kremlin palace coup, once seen as a way to end the war, now could bring about the opposite by giving rise to an even more ruthless, militaristic leader who could drag Russia into a full-blown military clash with NATO and unleash the country’s nuclear stockpile.

European Union Ambassador to the U.S. Stavros Lambrinidis warns in an interview with The Washington Times that Mr. Putin himself is betting that U.S. and European resolve will soon break down, asserting the West must stay strong because if Russia triumphs, “our capacity to project our democratic footprint on the world stage for decades to come will be dramatically diminished.”

The president made a surprise visit to Kyiv in a dramatic show of support for the war-torn country, announcing a fresh $460 million in U.S. military and other aid just days ahead of the invasion anniversary.

Pentagon correspondent Mike Glenn reported that training has been completed at the Army’s Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany for a first group of Ukrainian soldiers on M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles that Washington is supplying to Ukraine.

But far-left and far-right groups are banding together in Washington to criticize the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, with some saying Europe should take the lead in supporting Kyiv so the U.S. can focus on the larger threat posed by China.

The China factor loomed large over Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon’s deep dive on Washington’s expanding moves to deepen the U.S. economic, diplomatic and military footprint along China’s periphery. Mr. Salmon homes in on U.S. support for Japan’s plan to vastly expand its defense budget and improve relations with South Korea, another major U.S. ally in the region. In the Philippines, meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has signed a deal with Manila to expand U.S. military access to the strategic archipelago’s bases.

National security correspondent Bill Gertz separately reported on U.S. support for Manila, following what the State Department described as a “dangerous” Chinese laser attack on a Philippine coast guard ship in the South China Sea.

Troops wounded in Syria. U.S. forces remain active in the Middle East, including in Syria, where four American troops were wounded in a helicopter raid that killed a senior Islamic State leader last week.

Limiting AI. The Biden administration separately announced a proposed arms control agreement to limit the use of artificial intelligence and autonomy for the world’s military forces and weapons systems.

Balloon update. Fallout continued over the Feb. 4 downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina — as well as three other still-unidentified objects during subsequent days over the U.S. and Canada. Navy search teams have recovered debris from the Chinese craft, including the remains of its payload, which have been transferred to an FBI lab in Virginia for “counterintelligence exploitation,” according to U.S. Northern Command.

Closer to home, The Times’ Stephen Dinan reports on Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s assertion that Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel is now the biggest employer in Arizona’s Cochise County because it hires so many people to smuggle people and drugs across the U.S. southern border. On his first visit to the border as speaker, Mr. McCarthy argued that the cartel has been emboldened and enriched by Mr. Biden’s lax border policies. He also blasted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who he said needs to “stop lying to the American people” and restore border policies that worked in the Trump years.

Regular columnist and former CIA Clandestine Services Officer Daniel N. Hoffman argues that Russia increasingly finds it is facing a future as a vassal state for China, with Beijing “ruthlessly focused on taking maximum advantage of a weakened Russia … to dominate the Kremlin and turbo-boost its own grand strategy of becoming the world’s dominant power by 2049.”

Former State Department arms control point man Robert Joseph argues the U.S. must deploy “advanced capabilities in space” to deter China and Russia and defend against North Korean and Iranian missile threats.

And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich points to “an ominous possibility” the Chinese balloon shot down by the U.S. “could be used for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack — a capability that China has reportedly been testing.”

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