Reflections on the never-ending war in Ukraine

Four years ago, at 4am on 24 February 2022, Ukrainians woke up to the sound of explosions. Russia’s full-scale invasion would propel Europe and the world into a new era of geopolitical uncertainty. As the biggest refugee flight since the end of the Second World War began, and rockets rained down on hospitals and playgrounds, Ukrainians had to find new terms to describe the severe violence of the situation they found themselves in; velyka viyna (“big war”) and povnomashtabka (“the full-scaler”) is what they settled on. Here, leading thinkers, writers, politicians and diplomats reflect on the lessons of the big war. Katie Stallard Reporting from eastern Ukraine in 2023, I spoke to a wounded infantry soldier named Vlad as he was being evacuated from the front line near Bakhmut. For all the heroic videos on social media and the lionisation of Ukrainian fortitude, he said this was a “dirty war” that comprised “only blood, dirt and sweat”. Yet he was clear, even then, that they were fighting for more than Ukraine’s sovereignty. “We are the shield for the whole of Europe,” he told me. “If we do not stop them here, they will keep going. And Europe will be next.” As the war enters its fifth year, European leaders are belatedly reaching the same conclusion. It is clear now that Vladimir Putin’s ambitions go far beyond Ukraine and that he considers Russia to be engaged in an existential struggle with the West, for which he is prepared to withstand significant economic pain and a staggering toll in casualties. He has also learned a dangerous lesson about the power of nuclear sabre-rattling, which has surely been absorbed by other leaders such as Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, the American promise to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes” turned out to be hollow and its commitment to defend Europe is no longer assured. As the continent now attempts to rearm rapidly, perhaps the most important lesson to draw from the first four years of this war is that the rest of Europe has come to rely on Ukraine just as much as the other way around. Katie Stallard is senior editor (China and global affairs) at the New Statesman Subscribe to the New Statesman today for only £1 a week. Dmytro Kuleba War teaches a person how to live – fully and responsibly. It teaches one to cherish the rare hours of light, water and heating in frozen flats; to believe in the future without deceiving oneself with grand designs; to take the dogs out for a walk after a night of drone and missile attacks, when the buzzing has terrified adults, children and pets alike. In the face of fear and death, the most defiant act is to wake up and carry on caring for one another. Against all odds, war teaches people how to remain human. Like nature, war is a merciless teacher – not only of individuals, but of entire nations. The Ukrainian people have learned not to give up, even as hope wears thin. They wait patiently for others to grasp a simple truth: in a war of dictatorship against freedom, democratic values survive only when backed by factories, budgets and political stamina. Resolve and ammunition become diplomacy itself. Ukraine paid in blood, tears and destruction unseen on the continent since the Second World War in order to be recognised as an equal among European states. Many in Europe now realise that treating nations as buffers secures no one. If only this lesson had not come at such a devastating cost. Dmytro Kuleba is a Ukrainian politician and diplomat who served as minister of foreign affairs from 2020 until 2024 Judith Gough Every year, the British ambassador has the honour to award a sword to the top graduate of Ukraine’s National Defence University. No one remembers why, but it is testament to the relationship that has endured between our two countries. I remember it as a sombre and humbling occasion. The graduation ceremony would end with a march-past, as all the young soldiers proudly advanced to the next stage of their careers. Every time I would struggle to remain composed, as I knew – even then – that many were marching to the front line and would never return, because Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia since 2014. For 12 years, Ukraine has been fighting Russia for its right to exist as a sovereign European democratic country. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. Throughout, the UK has remained resolutely at Ukraine’s side and we have been the closest of partners. The UK has led the way in providing military, economic, political and humanitarian assistance. Now is the hardest of times, as Russia continues to kill and target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the middle of a harsh winter. European security demands, and Ukraine needs, our enduring support. Judith Gough is a British diplomat and has formerly served as the UK ambassador to Sweden, Ukraine and Georgia Nataliya Gumenyuk A TV report from the 2000s I watched recently showed Ukraine destroying its strategic bombers under the supervision of the US military. It was part of the deal following the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the US, the UK and Russia. The guarantees did not work. There were very few opportunities for Ukraine to avoid surrendering those weapons at the time. Still, this is precisely why Kyiv continues to ask for military assistance from Britain and the US. The past year – the year of so-called talks – has been the deadliest for Ukrainian civilians since the start of the Russian invasion, due to the growing number of air strikes, with swarms of drones following ballistic missiles. Ukraine is building its defence capacity with homegrown technologies. It is not enough. With stronger backing, more lives could be saved. Air defence against ballistic missiles remains the US’s only real leverage. But it also feels as if the Kremlin knows its hands are not tied; there won’t be any retaliation for its crimes, and that we are living through the weakest American presidency in history. If the US cannot do even the minimum to protect civilians and act where its role is decisive – instead of pressuring the victim to give up – why should it be relevant globally? Ukraine is proof that a reassurance once given must be kept and should remain valid. It is only fair. In fact, Ukraine is also trying to live as if this support is not there, relying on itself. That is the lesson it offers the world. Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian writer and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab Lawrence Freedman Four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation is remarkably similar to how it was three years ago. This is particularly true with the line of contact, which shows only marginal shifts in Russia’s favour. The cities that were in contention then are still in contention now, most notably Pokrovsk, whose imminent fall to Russian forces was first reported in summer 2024. By enduring in Pokrovsk and largely liberating Kupyansk, a small city east of Kharkiv, Ukraine has challenged the narrative of inevitable Russian victory. Donald Trump’s peace process is still stuck on Putin’s demand that Ukraine hand over the territory he cannot take by force. But Trump has been unable to get Volodymyr Zelensky to concede this territory. Last winter Russia sought to coerce Ukrainian civilians through attacks on critical infrastructure; it was thwarted by both their resilience and relatively mild temperatures. This winter has been severe. Energy shortages have turned it into one of the worst periods of the war for ordinary Ukrainians. Yet there is some hope that the military balance is shifting, and that there will be a realisation in the Kremlin that its war aims won’t be realised. Lawrence Freedman is emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London Photo by Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP via Getty Images) Tanya Lokshina Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the conflict has underscored a sobering truth: international law is only as strong as the political will to uphold it. The war has shown how severely the legal order can be tested and why its defence is critical. Russian authorities have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through the systematic torture and ill-treatment of thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees. Russian forces have also repeatedly carried out unlawful, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on populated areas, causing massive civilian harm and degrading critical infrastructure. The UN has recorded more than 15,000 civilian deaths and 40,000 injuries since February 2022. In occupied territories, Russia has flouted the laws of occupation by imposing its legislation and administration, coercing residents into Russian citizenship and military service, seizing civilian property, suppressing Ukrainian language and culture, and turning schools into instruments of propaganda and forced assimilation. The implication for policymakers engaged in negotiations is clear: accountability cannot be traded away. Amnesties for serious international crimes would entrench impunity and incentivise future abuses. States should instead support enforcement of International Criminal Court arrest warrants, back Ukraine’s own accountability efforts, strengthen use of universal jurisdiction and champion civil society organisations documenting violations and assisting survivors. Tanya Lokshina is senior associate director for the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch Marci Shore Without a distinction between truth and falsehood, we have no basis for a distinction between good and evil. Without a sense of the weight of death, we cannot feel the weight of life. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers described the Grenzsituation – a “limit” or “border situation” – as an experience of extremity that drives us to philosophy. Ukrainians are living in this Grenzsituation. Europe, by contrast, seems largely to be in a state of Freudian denial, refusing to see what is right in front of its eyes – both with respect to Putinist Russia and to my own country, the US, which has descended into fascism. Often I have the feeling that Europe is sleepwalking. In Ukraine, no one is. In the darkness, people have been shaken awake. In a world where the boundaries between truth and lies, the human and the inhuman, reality and unreality have dissolved, Ukrainians grasp what is real. They know that life is real because they know that death is real. The existence of evil is not an abstraction for them. The Grenzsituation is epistemologically privileged. Over the past four years, thinking has felt sharper to me in Ukraine than anywhere else. Marci Shore is the author of “The Ukrainian Night” (Yale) and a professor of intellectual history at the University of Toronto Jan Zielonka Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has forced the European Union to confront a painful question: can a  civilian power survive in an uncivilised environment? For decades, Europe preserved peace through trade, law and diplomacy. Former enemies such as Germany and France chose integration over rivalry and war. Détente with the Soviet Union helped avert direct confrontation with an ideological adversary and, in time, contributed to its collapse. The EU’s neighbourhood policy sought to export stability through democracy rather than domination. This civilian model delivered unprecedented peace and prosperity – and earned the EU the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. For a time, the precepts of Hugo Grotius and Immanuel Kant appeared more relevant to Europe than the Hobbesian logic of force. Prioritising economic over military integration seemed not only defensible but wise. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and the erosion of US security guarantees – has shattered these assumptions. Brexit compounded the EU’s vulnerability by removing a serious military asset from its ranks just as Russian imperialism returned. The EU is now racing to rebuild its defences, knowing that Ukraine’s defeat would put the security of the entire continent at risk. Still, lasting peace will not be achieved by guns alone; it also demands norms and laws. That power must answer to principle. Jan Zielonka is professor of European politics at the University of Oxford Artem Chapeye Far from every Ukrainian has been able to fight, yet the resolve of a minority makes it difficult for an aggressor – even one as huge as Russia – to break resistance. This is what we all should have learned. However, aggressors also learn that if victory cannot be won on the battlefield, then women, children, the elderly, medical professionals, schoolteachers and other civilians must be terrorised. Heating facilities, in time with the harshest winter in a decade, must be bombed. But this won’t break resistance either. The aggressor knows it’s unlikely they will be executed Nuremberg-style anyway, so why not bomb? A few military crimes there, a few crimes against humanity here… aggressors learn their impunity from one another and they also learn that each further aggression makes the public “tire” of atrocity, and so forget about previous crimes. What we – the people who resist – should learn is that the dominated are rarely remembered or helped, just as Uyghurs aren’t, as Gazans aren’t. Armed resistance, combined with the active solidarity of the better parts of the world, might be our only chance to stop ourselves from becoming victims of genocide. Artem Chapeye serves in the Ukrainian military and is the author of “Ordinary People Don’t Carry Machine Guns” (Seven Stories Press UK) Alexander Etkind There are many lessons to learn. First, words matter. This is not a conflict or invasion but a war – so far, the largest war of the 21st century. Second, understanding the world is essential to winning a war. For too long, too many have assumed that worldliness and intelligence do not matter. In this war, one side outguns the other while one side outsmarts the other. That asymmetry has proved decisive. Third, the war has revived an ancient idea of nemesis. Projected outward by the aggressor, evil returns amplified, showcasing the very fears invoked to justify violence. The war was launched to prevent Nato’s expansion; instead, Nato has expanded beyond the expectations of most people. It was launched to protect Russian culture; instead, the invasion has produced unprecedented levels of isolation and degradation for Russia. Nemesis, however, does not work by itself. Outcomes depend on how clearly – or delusionally – the opposing sides understand the world. War is not fate but politics, and victory is not destiny but the ability to learn lessons. In this war, democratic societies are learning – painfully but effectively – to confront reality, while imperial fantasies are collapsing under the weight of the world they refuse to understand. Alexander Etkind is the author of “Russia Against Modernity” (Polity) Tetiana Shevchuk We are approaching the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and 12 years since Crimea was occupied. This is perpetual war. And as long as Russians are allowed to sell their oil and minerals across the globe, it will continue. Ukraine still stands, but the pay we price for that is becoming more difficult to bear. We are tired of being Europe’s shield, Nato’s frontier. We are tired of being admired for our resilience. We are tired of burying our brave soldiers and innocent children. This winter has been particularly brutal; the Russians cannot achieve anything measurable on the battlefield, so they are eager to freeze millions to death. One country alone cannot win this war. Ukraine is fortunate to have allies, but they must be braver. The West’s caution is costing Ukrainian lives daily. Our task is clearer than ever: perhaps we cannot win militarily, but we must stand one day longer than Russia. That will be our victory. Not through grand strategy or diplomatic breakthroughs, but through sheer endurance. We have no choice but to outlast them, because surrender means erasure. If this war has taught us anything, it is that freedom’s price is counted in frozen winters, growing military cemeteries, a shattered economy, broken families and the grinding determination to refuse to die. Tetiana Shevchuk is a lawyer with the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv Anna Reid A couple of weeks ago I WhatsApped a friend in Kyiv to commiserate on the latest overnight barrage and ask  if she was OK. She messaged back with a joke. The Russian assault on the power grid, she said, was prompting her to “make healthier choices”. Because she had no light or heat at home, she went to her gym that is located in a shopping mall with an industrial generator to charge up her phone. She was also able to take a shower there, and use a hairdryer (what luxury). What are the lessons of this appalling war? Don’t assume that autocrats such as Vladimir Putin share our norms and goals; don’t be intimidated by nuclear threats; don’t rely on the US; don’t pretend that our half-baked sanctions will work; don’t indulge in economics-driven wishful thinking. All these points are well rehearsed. Less so the fact that Russia does not deserve its intimidating reputation. Its economy is roughly the same size as Italy’s, and its imposing landmass mostly empty forest and bog. Ukrainians are fed up with being told they are “resilient”. But it’s true, and we can be too. Anna Reid is the author of “Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Max Bergmann One important lesson of the war is that casualties mean little to Putin. Russia has suffered more than one million casualties, with almost no remarkable territorial gains in the last few years. This should fundamentally change how Europeans think about a Nato-Russia conflict, particularly if the US is not present. Europeans would certainly be able to bring about a significant number of casualties on an initial wave of Russian forces through the deployment of their F-35s and precision-guided munitions. But Russia could send waves of follow-on forces, anticipating that Europe will quickly run out of munition and that it could overwhelm Europe’s undermanned forces. Russia might then quickly entrench, build fortified lines and seek to turn the Baltic states into the EU’s version of Donbas. Europe, therefore, needs to think long and hard about how to deter a regime that has tolerance for mass casualties. Max Bergmann is the director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program and the Stuart Centre in Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies Photo by Roman Pilpey/AFP via Getty Images Olesya Khromeychuk As we enter the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale war and the 13th since its attack on Ukraine began, let us reflect on three words. The first is peace. Especially over the past year the word has been invoked so often – and with so little result – that its meaning has begun to fade. For Ukrainians, “peace negotiations” have come to signal the threat of yet another externally imposed plan for surrender. With Russia showing no interest in any genuine settlement, the prospect of a lasting peace feels more distant than ever. The second word is resilience. In Ukraine, it is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the absence of sufficient military support. However, resilience is likely to run out if it is not supported with adequate air defence. It is neither fair nor realistic to expect Ukrainians to win – or at least not to lose – this war on resilience alone. The third word is responsibility. It encompasses both accountability for Russian war crimes, which risk being sidelined in futile negotiations, and the responsibility of leaders in still-peaceful countries to work towards a just peace in Ukraine because that is the only kind of peace that can endure. Olesya Khromeychuk is the director of the Ukrainian Institute London and the author of “The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister” (Monoray) Volodymyr Ishchenko The four years of the Russia-Ukraine war have laid bare a profound crisis of knowledge regarding Ukraine, Russia, the post-Soviet region and the world at large. This epistemological failure is manifest in the way so many experts have been systematically wrong on virtually every major development – not merely military, but socio-political, economic and international. We witnessed the initial shock of invasion and erroneous forecasts of a swift Russian victory, followed by equally flawed expectations of inevitable Ukrainian triumph, internal Russian fragility and unwavering Western support. Analysts systematically overestimated Ukrainian unity and resilience while underestimating Russia’s authoritarian consolidation, blinding themselves to the deep-seated crisis of liberal democracy and the political fragmentation of Western elites. These were not merely individual misjudgements, collective conformism or the by-product of war propaganda. Rather, they revealed fundamental flaws in our grand narratives of post-Soviet transformation. Neither the teleology of “democratisation” anticipated since 1989, nor the “decolonisation” buzzword embraced since 2022, nor the cyclical models of patronal politics could predict the grim reality looming in early 2026. The war revealed and escalated fundamental national, regional and global crises. It has also shattered our basic interpretive frameworks about what is happening and what to expect next. Ukraine had served as a broken mirror for a disintegrating world sliding into a frightening, unknown future. Volodymyr Ishchenko is a research associate at the Institute for East European Studies, Free University of Berlin Serhy Yekelchyk Ukraine’s revolutionary instincts have not faded. Zelensky might be a globally recognised symbol of resilience, but in July 2025 he faced mass protests after his administration moved to curb the powers of the country’s special anti-corruption bureau. The rallies erupted spontaneously across major cities – and were not led by seasoned protest veterans but by university students. Even in wartime, Ukrainians keep watch over their political elites. Democracy is no longer an aspiration; it is a reflex. The war itself mutates by the month. Tanks and warships increasingly look like relics. Vast armies matter less when a single soldier can become a target of a cheap drone. On the front lines, it is often drones hunting drones. Away from the battlefield, however, Russia wages a different kind of war: one aimed at freezing civilians and obliterating infrastructure – unmistakeably a war crime. Putin has travelled a long road from insisting that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” to bombarding entire Ukrainian cities. Yet even this campaign of destruction has failed to break the country’s remarkable spirit. Serhy Yekelchyk is a historian and the author of “Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press) [Further Reading: Andrey Kurkov: People no longer ask me how the Ukraine war will end] Content from our partners Related

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