So much has already been written about Ukraine that the scale of what has happened is difficult to digest.
As of this morning AEDT, most reporting indicates that Russian forces have pushed down from Belarus and are now in the northern suburbs of Kyiv. Meanwhile, Russian columns are driving westwards towards Kyiv along major roads, while others probe fierce Ukrainian resistance in the eastern cities of Sumy and Kharkiv.
In the south, Russian forces have pushed upwards from Crimea and across the Dnipro river, and are advancing north and east in what may be a pincer movement designed to trap Ukrainian forces in the east.
The consensus amongst military analysts is that the Russians have performed worse than expected. Russia has failed to establish air superiority; airborne assaults and forward raids have been ineffective; armour is advancing without infantry support and is being ambushed; Russian logistics are inadequate; naval forces have undertaken pointless amphibious landings. Putin and his defence staff appear to have underestimated the Ukrainians and overestimated themselves.
The Russian military may eventually achieve major battlefield victories. Yet the human cost will be immense and many outcomes unknown. The question of what Putin hopes to achieve politically with a war of this scale also remains unanswerable.
However, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine nears the end of its fourth day, the profound geopolitical consequences of Putin's decision are beginning to crystallise.
European responses
Finland, which once fell under Russian control, for decades has pursued a policy of armed neutrality. Yet Putin's irredentism is a direct threat to its sovereignty. Russia has already threatened Helsinki with 'military consequences' should it join NATO, but public support for membership is increasing and former prime minister Alexander Stubb has said 'at this rate we have no other option but to join'. Sweden is in a similar position and has said it will send weapons to Ukraine.
Turkey, on the border between Europe and Asia, has been drifting away from NATO under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan - the country was notably kicked out of the F-35 program after acquiring Russian S-400 missile defence systems. Yet Erdogan seems to have somewhat reversed course. After initially hesitating, Turkey has now called the situation in Ukraine a 'war' and suggested it may close the gates to the Black Sea to Russian warships.
Hungary (which shares a border with Ukraine) also appears to have reversed course on its drift towards Russia under prime minister Viktor Orban, an admirer of Putin. Orban has pledged Hungarian support for EU sanctions against Russia.
Poland is emerging as a central actor. The country is accepting thousands of Ukrainian refugees, has advocated for Ukraine to be offered an 'accelerated path' to EU membership following the invasion, and appears to be the transit point for military aid flowing into Ukraine. Poland is geographically exposed to similar Russian military action and has triggered Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, fearing for its safety.
The three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are in a similar position to Poland. Like many European countries, they have banned Russian flights from their airspace and have also benefited from the historic activation of NATO's rapid response force, which has seen the US redeploy forces to their territories.
Meanwhile, the European Union has decided to send weapons to a country under attack for the first time in its history, including MiG-29 jets from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Poland, and has agreed to a unprecedented package of sanctions (alongside the US and Canada) that is likely to cause a major economic crisis in Russia.
But there is one response in Europe that is perhaps more significant than any other: Germany will re-arm.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Bundestag on Sunday that the country will now spend more than two per cent of its GDP on defence in the long term, will more than double its current defence budget in 2022, and may purchase F-35s from the US. Germany has also broken a long-standing policy against sending weapons to conflict zones and is providing military support to Ukraine.
Asia
China announced a 'no-limits' cooperative agreement between President Xi Jinping and Putin a few weeks before the invasion. Although China has shown economic support for Russia since the war began, such as lifting a wheat import restriction, there are also indications that it is backpedalling from its previous support: it abstained from a UN resolution against the invasion (seen as a diplomatic victory for the West) and its banks have limited financing for Russian purchases, fearing secondary Western sanctions.
In Japan, former prime minister Shinzo Abe has suggested that the country should mimic NATO's sharing arrangements for nuclear weapons and that the US should commit more openly to defending Taiwan. Japan's on-going debate about procuring nuclear-powered submarines, reported by ADM last week, may also substantially change.
Southeast Asian countries have been reserved in their condemnations of Russia. A draft ASEAN statement called on 'all parties' to exercise restraint and individual states such as Indonesia have kept fairly close to this guarded language, though Singapore has condemned the invasion. Analysts suggest this general reluctance is due to geographic distance and Russia's local influence through the UN Security Council and its major arms contracts.
India is maintaining a disappointing silence over the invasion. It also abstained from the UN resolution demanding that Russia cease military action, which appears to be due to its reliance on Russian weapons systems in its on-going standoffs with China and Pakistan, as well as perceptions that it could use its friendly relations with Moscow as a 'backdoor' to Beijing.
Nonetheless, Putin so far appears to be achieving the exact opposite of his stated goals: he has unified the Western world against him, caused Germany to rise to its true military potential, driven Ukraine closer to Western institutions, raised the possibility of further NATO expansion on Russia's borders, potentially undermined relations with his only major partner in Beijing, and created a security crisis on Russia's south-west flank that did not exist five days ago.
What does it all mean?
The scale of Russian action in Ukraine and the Russian military's focus on capturing Kyiv suggests that Putin wants to replace Ukraine's government with a Russian puppet, or perhaps to partition the country into east and west.
Even if the Russians eventually defeat the Ukrainian military, either of these political outcomes will be extraordinarily difficult for Putin to achieve. Victory will not be permanent. Over the weekend it became clear that the Russian military is performing poorly and is fast becoming embroiled in a proxy war against the entire Western world. As Lawrence Freedman has written, Russia cannot sustain the occupation force required to defend a puppet government in Ukraine against a Western-funded insurgency.
In addition, we don't know what level of support Putin has for this war within Russia, or how that support will evolve over time. What happens if Putin is unable to protect the Russian elite from economic losses or shield ordinary Russians from the military's casualties in Ukraine?
The re-awakening of Germany is especially tectonic. If Berlin fulfils the two per cent pledge over the years, its military may become the most powerful in Europe: the country's economic potential would allow it to eclipse the UK, France and Russia. Germany's military rise will also change China's view of the global balance of power.
There have been numerous parallels drawn between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a hypothetical Chinese action against Taiwan. At this early stage there is little evidence to support any reliable assumptions. However, it is worth pointing out that the logistical issues Russia is facing in Ukraine would be greatly magnified in a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan. In addition, Putin knew his soldiers would not face American troops in Ukraine, but the ambiguity of American involvement in Taiwan is a huge complicating factor for Beijing.
If this war goes badly for Putin in the long-term – which it very well could – Xi Jinping may hopefully revisit his assumptions about the risks and rewards of invading Taiwan. For an autocratic leader, failure on such a scale can turn into a matter of survival.
As the maxim goes, war is not an end in itself - it is a means to achieve a political goal. The longer this war goes on the more elusive those goals will become for Putin, and the aura of cunning he has long held may be broken. His ability to balance himself on the summit of Russian power may, at last, start coming to an end.