KYIV, Ukraine (AP) One month of war, still defiant. With its government still standing and its outnumbered troops battling Russian forces to bloody stalemates in multiple places, Ukraine is scarred, wounded, mourning its dead but far from beaten as it braces for a second month of bombing, combat, casualties and resistance.

When, on Feb. 24, Russia unleashed its Ukraine invasion force in Europes biggest offensive since World War II and brandished the prospect of nuclear escalation if the West intervened, a lightning-swift toppling of Ukraines democratically elected government seemed possible.

But with Wednesday marking four full weeks of fighting, Russia is instead bogged down in an increasingly costly, uncertain and grinding military campaign, with untold numbers of dead, no immediate end in sight, and encircled by western sanctions biting hard on its economy and currency. U.S. President Joe Biden and key allies meeting in Brussels and Warsaw this week will discuss possible new sanctions and additional military assistance for Ukraine.

The economic and geopolitical shockwaves with soaring energy prices, fears for global food supplies, and Russia and China aligning in a new world order with echoes of the Cold War have reverberated across the planet that still hasnt emerged from the ongoing crisis of the coronavirus pandemic.