Ukraine has shown what it can do to survive – this is what it needs to win

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I could hear the take-off detonation being filmed live and broadcast around the world in my earpiece, along with my TV colleague’s report of the Russian attack. It was the morning that Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Standing in the pre-dawn freeze on a terrace overlooking Kharkiv’s Freedom Square four years ago, it was less than a minute before I was reporting on those rockets when they exploded on impact.

The skyline bulged orange, then came the concussive thump, then the cracks of the rockets exploding. They’d been fired from Russia into Ukraine’s second-biggest city.

open image in gallery A survivor of an airstrike on an apartment complex outside Kharkiv in February 2022 ( Getty )

The BM-30 Smerch were among the worst. They scattered cluster bombs, spattering the city with deadly golden balls. BM-212 Grads, the old-fashioned Stalin’s Organ multiple rocket launchers, were terrifying too.

They screeched from the sky in swarms, landing like spears on residential areas, killing and burning ahead of the advancing Russi