Saturn-Neptune at the Aries Point: Ukraine's War Enters Year Four

The photographs arrive like dispatches from a world that has learned to hold contradictory truths in a single frame. An Associated Press photo essay, published to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, captures Ukrainians who have endured 1,461 days of war. Their faces are maps of a transformed continent. In one portrait, a subject reflects on the rupture: "We believed that the world was beautiful and kind." In another, determination crystallizes into something h

The timing is not lost on those who read the sky. On February 20, 2026—four days before the invasion's fourth anniversary—Saturn and Neptune formed a conjunction at 0 degrees Aries. This is the Aries Point, the World Axis, the First Point of Aries where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic plane. In mundane astrology, this degree carries the weight of global significance. When two slow-moving planets meet here, the world takes notice, whether it knows to look up or not.

The Saturn-Neptune conjunction initiates a new cycle that will extend until 2061. This is not a minor celestial event. Saturn, the principle of structure, boundary, and crystallized reality, merges with Neptune, the principle of dissolution, dream, and the erosion of solid forms. Their union at the degree of new beginnings—Aries, the sign of initiation, warfare, and self-assertion—speaks directly to the conflict that has consumed Eastern Europe for four years.

The World Axis and the Weight of Zero Degrees

The First Point of Aries defines the ecliptic coordinate of (0°, 0°). It is the origin point of the zodiac, the moment when the Sun crosses the celestial equator at the spring equinox. In mundane astrology, placements at this degree are said to have world-scale influence. They do not operate in the private sphere. They announce themselves on the stage of nations, treaties, and borders.

When Saturn and Neptune meet at this degree, we are asked to consider how structures dissolve and how dissolutions harden into new structures. The old order—whether political, territorial, or psychological—passes away. The new order arrives, but it arrives through a process that is neither clean nor merciful. Neptune erodes what Saturn has built. Saturn crystallizes what Neptune has revealed. The conjunction at the Aries Point suggests that this process is now playing out on the world stage, in the glare of history.

The war in Ukraine has been precisely this process made flesh. The post-Cold War order, with its assumptions about European security and the inviolability of borders, has dissolved under Neptune's influence. What has replaced it is something harder, more defined, more Saturnian: a Europe remilitarizing, a NATO expanding, a Ukraine that exists in a state of permanent mobilization. The photographs in the AP essay document the human face of this transformation. The subjects have passed through the fog of war and emerged with something irrevocable in their expressions.

Four Years: The Geometry of Anniversaries

February 24, 2026 marks the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that the conflict now enters its fifth year, with EU officials traveling to Kyiv on the anniversary date to demonstrate continued European support. The gesture is both symbolic and substantial. It affirms that Ukraine's cause remains Europe's cause, even as the war has settled into a grinding rhythm of attrition.

The anniversary arrives amid conditions that reflect the Saturn-Neptune dynamic. The territorial shifts are slow-moving—a Saturnian quality of incremental hardening rather than rapid change. The U.S.-backed peace talks have stalled, caught between Neptune's dissolving promises and Saturn's intractable positions. Meanwhile, Russia maintains a sustained aerial campaign targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure, an effort to dissolve the civilian will to resist even as the front lines solidify.

The fourth anniversary carries its own numerological weight. In many traditions, four represents stability, structure, the completion of a foundation. After four years, the war is no longer an aberration. It has become a structure itself, a fact of life that shapes everything it touches. The AP portraits show Ukrainians who have integrated war into their identity. They have not surrendered to it. They have learned to contain it, to carry it, to move forward with it.

Competing Narratives: The Fog of Words

Neptune's domain includes not only the erosion of physical structures but also the fog of narrative. From the beginning, the war has been a conflict of words as much as weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced what he called a "special military operation" (spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) on February 24, 2022. The GlobalSecurity.org archive notes that Putin framed the invasion as a response to appeals from leaders of the self-declared Donbass republics. That language has not changed. Russian officials continue to reject characterizations of the conflict as a war of aggression or as initiating a "fifth year" of occupation.

The Nuremberg Tribunal precedent, cited in discussions of the war's legal status, declares that "to initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." This is Saturn's judgment: the hardening of moral and legal categories, the insistence that words mean what they say. Neptune, by contrast, clouds the distinction between aggression and protection, between invasion and operation, between war and its euphemisms.

The AP photo essay cuts through this fog. The faces do not lie. They show the accumulated weight of four years—the grief, the resolve, the transformation. One subject quoted by the BBC spoke of a particular kind of loss: "To lose your friend in an attack inside Russia, rather than defending our country in Ukraine, is very difficult." The war has expanded beyond Ukraine's borders, and so has its human cost. The photographs document this expansion, this widening circle of consequence.

The Saturn-Neptune Cycle: A 36-Year Arc

The Saturn-Neptune cycle spans approximately 36 years. The previous conjunction occurred in 1989, coinciding with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. That conjunction was in Capricorn—the sign of institutions, structures, and authority. The old order collapsed, and a new one began to take shape.

Now the conjunction has moved to Aries, the sign of initiation and warfare. The dissolution that began in 1989 has reached a new phase. The post-Soviet order is not merely dissolving; it is being actively contested. The war in Ukraine is the most violent expression of this contest, but it is not the only one. The Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the Aries Point suggests that the period of dissolution is giving way to a period of hardening. New structures are forming. New boundaries are being drawn. The process is not complete, and it is not peaceful.

The cycle will not return to this degree until 2061. By then, the children photographed in the AP essay will be in their forties. The war will be a memory, a history, a foundation upon which something new has been built. What that something will be depends on choices made now, in the crucible of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction.

The Current Sky: Additional Voices

The conjunction does not speak alone. On February 24, 2026, Jupiter occupies 15 degrees Cancer—the sign of homeland, protection, and emotional security. Jupiter in Cancer expands these themes. It speaks to the protection of home, the defense of family, the preservation of a way of life. For Ukraine, this placement resonates with the struggle to protect national identity and territorial integrity. Jupiter's presence in Cancer suggests that the cause of homeland defense carries moral weight, that the protection of one's own is not merely a political position but a spiritual imperative.

Mars, the planet of warfare and assertion, occupies 25 degrees Aquarius. Aquarius is the sign of collective action, technology, and unconventional approaches. Mars here describes a conflict that is not merely traditional warfare but something hybrid, networked, technologically mediated. The drones, the cyber attacks, the information warfare—all fall under Mars in Aquarius. The placement also suggests that the war's resolution may come through collective action rather than individual heroism, through alliances rather than unilateral moves.

Mercury at 22 degrees Pisces speaks to the flow of information and narrative. Pisces is Neptune's sign, and Mercury here is immersed in the fog. Communication is unclear, narratives compete, the truth is difficult to pin down. Yet Mercury in Pisces also carries the potential for compassionate communication, for language that transcends propaganda and speaks to the heart. The AP photographs do this work. They communicate not through argument but through presence. They show rather than tell.

The Moon at 8 degrees Gemini reflects the public mood: restless, curious, processing information from multiple sources. Gemini is the sign of duality, and the public consciousness holds multiple truths simultaneously. The war is both distant and present, both abstract and viscerally real. The Moon in Gemini suggests a population that is mentally engaged but emotionally dispersed, seeking to understand but struggling to integrate.

Dissolution and Hardening: The Saturn-Neptune Process

The Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the Aries Point illuminates the central dynamic of the war: the simultaneous dissolution of the old order and the hardening of the new. This is not a clean process. It is messy, violent, and incomplete. Neptune dissolves the boundaries that Saturn has established. Saturn rushes to rebuild them, often in different forms.

The borders of Europe are being redrawn—not on maps, perhaps, but in consciousness. The distinction between peace and war has dissolved for Ukrainians, and a new reality has hardened: the reality of permanent vigilance. The distinction between East and West has dissolved, and a new reality has hardened: the reality of a Europe united by threat. The distinction between military and civilian has dissolved, and a new reality has hardened: the reality of total societal mobilization.

The AP photographs show this process in human form. The subjects have been dissolved and reconstituted. They are not who they were before February 24, 2022. They are something new—harder, clearer, more defined. Saturn has done its work. But Neptune is also present, in the grief that has not fully crystallized, in the dreams that persist, in the hope that refuses to be extinguished.

Amsterdam and Kyiv: Commemoration and Continuation

On February 22, 2026, Ukrainian community members and supporters gathered at Dam Square in Amsterdam to commemorate the anniversary. WYPR reports on the gathering, noting the presence of both Ukrainian refugees and their Dutch supporters. The location is significant. Amsterdam is not Kyiv, but on this day, the two cities are connected by the geometry of remembrance. The photographs in the AP essay are displayed in Amsterdam as they are in Kyiv. The faces look out from both places, demanding witness.

EU officials, traveling to Kyiv on the anniversary, affirmed that "we will do everything to secure peace and justice." The statement is both promise and acknowledgment. Peace and justice are not identical, and their pursuit may require different paths. Saturn demands justice—the enforcement of rules, the punishment of violations. Neptune dreams of peace—the cessation of conflict, the healing of wounds. The conjunction holds both possibilities, and the tension between them.

The Photographer's Witness

The BBC documents the work of photographer Alina Smutko, who has chronicled the war's evolution from its earliest days. Her lens has moved from initial wartime check-ins among friends and family to ongoing documentation of conflict impacts, including Russian missile strikes on civilian areas such as Kryvyi Rih in June 2023. This is Neptune's work: the witnessing of dissolution, the recording of what is being lost. But it is also Saturn's work: the preservation of memory, the creation of a record that will harden into history.

The AP essay continues this work. The portraits are not merely images; they are evidence. They testify to what has happened and what continues to happen. They insist that the world see what it might prefer to ignore. In the language of astrology, they function as Saturn's testimony against Neptune's fog. They make visible what might otherwise dissolve into forgetfulness.

Looking Forward: The New Cycle

The Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the Aries Point initiates a cycle that will last until 2061. The decisions made in this moment—the alliances formed, the boundaries drawn, the narratives established—will shape the next 36 years. The war in Ukraine is the first major expression of this new cycle, but it will not be the last.

For Ukraine, the conjunction suggests a period of hardening identity. The nation that emerges from this war will be different from the nation that entered it. The dissolution of the post-Soviet order has forced a crystallization of Ukrainian national consciousness. This is Saturn's gift: the clarity that comes from having survived Neptune's flood.

For Europe, the conjunction suggests a period of structural transformation. The security architecture that has held since the end of the Cold War is dissolving. What replaces it is still forming. The Saturn-Neptune cycle will be a period of negotiation, contestation, and eventual hardening into new forms.

For the world, the conjunction at the Aries Point is a reminder that the global order is not fixed. Borders dissolve. Alliances shift. What seems permanent can erode in a single season. But the converse is also true: what seems chaotic can crystallize into something enduring. The photographs in the AP essay show this dual truth. The subjects have lost the world they knew. They have gained a clarity they did not seek.

The Faces of the New Cycle

The AP portraits are not only documents of the past four years. They are prophecies of the next 36. The faces show what the Saturn-Neptune conjunction means in human terms. They show the dissolution of innocence and the hardening of resolve. They show grief that has not dissolved and hope that has not hardened into cynicism.

The subject who said "we believed that the world was beautiful and kind" has passed through Neptune's disillusionment. The subject who said "once I decide something, it's very hard to turn me from that path" has arrived at Saturn's determination. Between these two statements lies the journey of a nation, and perhaps of a world.

The Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the Aries Point is not a prediction. It is a mirror. It reflects what is already happening: the dissolution of the old and the hardening of the new. The war in Ukraine is the most visible expression of this process, but it is not the only one. Everywhere, structures are eroding. Everywhere, new forms are taking shape. The conjunction simply illuminates what is already true.

The photographs from Kyiv, from Amsterdam, from the front lines and the rear areas, are the human record of this celestial moment. They show us what Saturn and Neptune look like when they meet at the World Axis. They show us the cost of dissolution and the weight of hardening. They show us, in the end, what it means to live through history.