Written by Simon Robinson

(Reuters) – Sometimes it’s what doesn’t happen that matters.

By the evening of February 25 this year, the day after Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine in Europe’s largest military offensive since World War II, Russian forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv.

As artillery fire spread in the distance across the capital, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry urged residents to make petrol bombs to repel the invaders. President Volodymyr Zelensky pictured himself with aides on the streets of the city, vowing to defend his country’s independence.

“Tonight they will attack,” Zelensky said. “We must all understand what lies ahead. We must endure this night.”

The offensive never came—and 10 months later, the “military special operation” bogged down in Moscow. In some places, it is in decline. Many in Moscow expected the Russian army to sweep victory, oust Zelensky’s government and install a regime friendly to Russia.

To be sure, Russian forces still control large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, and at least 40,000 civilians have been killed and 14 million displaced in the grinding conflict. But Ukrainian forces, backed by billions of dollars in Western weaponry, have regularly proven smarter and more effective than the demoralized Russians.

It was a similar story in the United States, where Republicans and some pundits predicted a red wave in the midterm elections. The Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives, but the victory there was narrow with a majority of fewer than 10 seats. Not only did the party fail to regain the Senate, but it lost several gubernatorial races. Democrats prevailed in all three Secretary of State contests in presidential battleground states as their Republican opponents denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

The midterm elections usually direct a stern rebuke to the incumbent’s party. This time it was a minor problem.

In economics, most of the world’s major central banks waited until March to start raising interest rates. The ECB did not act until July. Monetary hawks complained that the delay allowed inflation to rise. Will it be costly in the long run? Can the Federal Reserve keep the US economy from recession?

The answers will become clearer in 2023. There are early signs that inflation may be peaking in some economies, but growth is also easing. In a few countries – looking at you, Britain – the outlook is still bleak.

At the United Nations climate talks in Egypt, countries agreed to set up a fund to help poor countries threatened by climate disasters, but failed to agree on plans to reduce emissions faster. Meanwhile, record heatwaves in China, floods in Pakistan and Europe, and avalanches of glaciers in India, Italy and Chile were reminders of how quickly our planet’s climate is changing.

This was also the year that protests exploded in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mohsa Amini, who was arrested for wearing an “indecent” head scarf. Eyewitnesses said she was beaten, although the Iranian authorities deny this. The protests, led mostly by women, spread across the country and across social classes. The longer they continue, the greater the threat they will pose to the 43-year-old Islamic Revolution.

What else happened in 2022? The US dollar soared, cryptocurrency exploded, and Elon Musk bought Twitter (which he preceded to make changes so big that it threatened to crash). This was the year Latin America swept to the left, a cease-fire finally came in Ethiopia’s civil war, and North Korea fired one missile after another. This was the year Britain lost a queen, gained a king and saw three prime ministers in Downing Street.

Finally, much of the world is emerging from COVID, at least socially if not epidemiologically. The biggest exception has been China, whose policy of not spreading the coronavirus has sparked protests and unrest in the past few weeks. In October, the country’s twice-a-decade Congress of the Communist Party saw President Xi Jinping tighten his grip on power and win a third term, breaking with recent party traditions that have seen presidents serve only two terms. Can the Corona virus shake the status quo?

We’ll be there if that happens. In 2022, Reuters has reported all of these vital stories and tens of thousands more. Over the next few weeks, we’ll recap the biggest ones, dig into why they’re important, and ask where they might go. And in 2023, we will continue to connect the world to you, wherever you are.

Explore Reuters’ collection of the news stories that dominated the year, and the outlook for 2023.