Like journalists across the globe, The Conversation’s staff members were up late last night as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. When a historic story breaks, we want to be on top of it – no matter how unsettling it may be to each of us.

We got a story published and out in a special newsletter by 7:20 this morning. It’s a compilation I wrote between 6:10 and 9:20 last night, presenting a selection of our coverage from the past two months to help set the context and history for this war – you can see that here. Our business and economics editor pulled a story that had been finished before the invasion to update it. He texted me at 11:30 last night saying he needed an edit – I got to that at 6:15 this morning and we published “America’s cost of ‘defending freedom’ in Ukraine: Higher food and gas prices and an increased risk of recession” just before 9 a.m. today.

We also decided to ask a panel of experts for their brief reactions to the invasion. Military scholars write their first takes on the war in this story; and a cybersecurity expert provides a quick guide to how to protect yourself in what may become a fierce cyberwar. And finally, we asked the eminent University of Michigan historian Ronald Suny, who has spent his long career studying the peoples and politics of the region, to correct a number of historical misperceptions about Russia and Ukraine that have emerged in popular discussion recently.

Coming up in the next days will be more late nights, I imagine, and more stories from our religion, technology, business, energy/environment and politics desks. And of course, we have lots of coverage on other subjects, such as this story on deaths of immigrants at the U.S. southern border and another about the search for progress in post-apartheid South Africa.

The adrenaline from last night is beginning to wear off, but I’ve got two or three more stories to edit. Time for coffee.