Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Putin's Invasion of Ukraine Is a Sin All Russians Will Bear

The military assault is a tragedy, throwing two nations with so much in common against each other.

February 24, 2022 at 9:28 AM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

People sheltering in a metro station in Kyiv in the morning of Feb. 24, after air raid sirens rang out in the Ukrainian capital. — People sheltering in a metro station in Kyiv in the morning of Feb. 24, after air raid sirens rang out in the Ukrainian capital.
Photographer: DANIEL LEAL/AFP

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I have written and said many times in recent weeks that I didn’t believe Vladimir Putin would launch a full invasion of Ukraine. I was horribly wrong.

Here’s why.