After two years of fighting against a global pandemic, the world was finally getting ready for some normalcy in 2022 but that hope was largely crushed when Russia decided to invade Ukraine in February.

The war did not just bring death and destruction, it triggered a domino effect of major crises in world politics as well as global energy and food supply.

The situation was only worsened by the looming climate crisis, political unrest, and instabilities in countries like the U.S. and Britain, with probably the only silver lining being peace in Ethiopia after two years of conflict.

War in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest invasion in Europe since World War II when he sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, causing millions of Ukrainians to flee abroad.

The West imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow and sent billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. Russian forces failed to capture the capital, Kyiv, and topple the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In the south, Russian forces captured most of Ukraine's Black Sea coastline, including the port of Mariupol, which was destroyed in a three-month siege.

In April, Russian forces were accused of massacring scores of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

By September, Ukrainian forces were regaining ground in the northeast and south. Putin hastily annexed four Ukrainian regions partly controlled by Russia, a move condemned as illegal by the United Nations.

In November, Russian forces retreat from the southern port of Kherson, ending an eight-month occupation.

As the year ended, Russian strikes relentlessly battered Ukraine's energy infrastructure, causing power cuts across the country as winter set in.

In December, on his first overseas trip since the invasion, Zelenskyy went to Washington to address U.S. Congress, appealing for long-term U.S. support.

Nightmare on Downing St.

Britain got its fifth conservative prime minister in six years in 2022.

Rishi Sunak took office in October after his tax-cutting predecessor Liz Truss self-combusted in just 44 days – the shortest-ever tenure for a British leader.

Truss's lightning fall from grace, sparked by a disastrous mini-budget, capped a tumultuous 2022 in Britain.

The year was marked by the death of its longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, at the age of 96 and the forced resignation of Brexiteer premier Boris Johnson after a series of scandals.

US abortion shock

The U.S. Supreme Court caused global shockwaves in June when it overturned its landmark 1973 "Roe v. Wade" decision, which enshrined a constitutional right to abortion nationwide, returning the issue to individual states.

Following the ruling, abortion bans are brought in by Republicans in 16 U.S. states, home to 26.5 million women.

The issue impacted November's midterms, as U.S. voters in several states side with candidates advocating access to abortion.

Xi cements control

President Xi Jinping cemented his control at the helm of China after winning a historic third term in November as leader the world's second-largest economy.

But the Chinese lost patience with the snap lockdowns, mass testing and curbs on movement imposed by the government's signature zero-COVID strategy.

Hundreds of people took part in protests against the restrictions in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Urumqi, Wuhan and other cities. Some even dared to call for Xi's resignation.

China's warplane incursions into Taiwan's air defense zone skyrocketed while Beijing held the largest military exercises in decades around the self-ruled island, raising alarm in Taipei.

In December, Beijing announced a loosening of its zero-COVID policy, ending large-scale lockdowns and allowing some positive cases to isolate at home.

It also said quarantine measures for overseas arrivals will be scrapped in the New Year.

Heatwave after heatwave

Europe sweltered through the hottest summer in its recorded history, with the mercury topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time in Britain.

Parts of the Arctic and Antarctic, China and the U.S. also experience record temperatures.

Extreme weather events linked to climate change continue to wreak havoc in developing countries.

Flooding in Pakistan affected vast swathes of the country, Nigeria suffered its worst floods in a decade and parts of drought-hit Somalia face the threat of famine.

At the United Nations climate summit in Egypt (COP27), developing nations finally succeeded in getting wealthy polluters to agree to pay into a "loss and damage" fund to compensate poorer countries for climate damage.

Inflation bites

The invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions on Russia create an energy crisis of a magnitude unseen in half a century, with costs for gas and electricity soaring globally.

Britain sees its energy bills double over the space of a year. Soaring energy prices are also a factor in Sri Lanka's cost-of-living crisis, which in August forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee abroad.

Inflation soared globally, prompting central banks to aggressively hike interest rates, raising fears of another major debt crisis.

Far-right on the march

The far-right made unprecedented gains in Europe in 2022.

Voters in Italy elected their most right-wing leader since World War II in post-fascist firebrand, Giorgia Meloni.

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats were the big winners of a general election that brought conservatives to power in that country.

In France, a surge by both the far-right and hard left stopped center-right President Emmanuel Macron of his parliamentary majority.

But in Latin America, the right was in decline.

Veteran left-winger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made a stunning comeback in Brazil, ousting far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Left-wing leaders also came to power in Colombia and Honduras.

Iran protests

In Iran, the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest for alleged violations of the country's Islamic dress code sparked the biggest protests in years.

On the street and on social media women and girls defiantly removed their headscarves in an unprecedented challenge to the country's clerical leadership.

Iran sought to quell the protests by sentencing some of the protesters to death.

On Dec. 8, Mohsen Shekari, 23, becomes the first person executed by authorities over the protests. Four days later Majidreza Rahnavard, 23, was hanged in public.

The Oslo-based monitor Iran Human Rights on Dec. 19 said Iran's security forces killed at least 469 people in the protests, while at least 14,000 people have been arrested, according to the U.N.

Peace in Ethiopia

After two years of conflict that have killed untold numbers of civilians and led to near-famine conditions in Tigray, Ethiopia's government and Tigrayan rebels agreed on a landmark peace deal.

The agreement allowed critical humanitarian aid to resume in the northern region.