Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is entering its fourth year.
The Russian army has failed to force a Ukrainian surrender of any territory or political governance, turning the invasion of 2022 into a long war lasting well into the decade.
Junior Liora Goldberg said, “It’s really scary to see that Russia has been able to force Ukraine into such a miserable fight for its existence and way of life, but it’s also inspiring to see the Ukrainian people successfully defend itself for so long.”
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces currently control Kherson and Zaporizhia, as well as Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russian proxies took over in 2014, and Crimea, which Russia annexed that same year.
Ukrainian counteroffensives have taken back large swathes of territory, especially in the north and northeast along the border of Belarus and Russia.
Although Russia launched a failed attempt at capturing the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in the early days of the war, the large amounts of captured land surrounding Kyiv have since been retaken by Ukraine. Russia has failed to capture any more cities that might have forced a surrender of any kind.
There have been summits and peace talks since the invasion began, but no long-lasting ceasefires of any kind.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a press conference, “Ukrainian forces will have to leave the territories they currently occupy, and then the fighting will stop. If they don’t, we will achieve this by military means.”
“Although I’m glad everyone is trying, I wish peace could be reached faster,” said sophomore Theo Buber.
Both sides have military casualties in the hundreds of thousands, with Ukrainian and independent fact-finding sources claiming that Russian losses are significantly higher than Ukrainian.
“It’s terrible that there are so many casualties on both sides, because even though they might choose to be in the army, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they chose to wage war. I don’t think every soldier killed in the Russian army wanted there to be a war,” said junior Leo Milch.
The UN verified that over 14,700 Ukrainian civilians had been killed.
Part of the reason that Ukraine has been able to continue its existence and fight Putin’s invasion is that many European and NATO countries, especially the United States, Germany and Poland, have donated massive amounts of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
As the largest contributor of military aid, America has also made significant efforts to reach a diplomatic solution.
President Putin has demanded that, in exchange for peace, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea must all be recognized as Russian territory.
Ukraine, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky, has rejected these demands.
Buber said, “I agree with the Ukraine’s position of not giving up any land because the country is not very big, and giving up land now sets a precedent that if Russia ever wants more land, they can wage a war and be guaranteed to receive everything they want.”
The invasion began in February of 2022 after weeks of Russian troop movements that alarmed observers.
The invasion was executed under an umbrella of pretexts. This includes territorial irredentism, supporting Russia’s “independent” allies of Donetsk and Luhansk, and preventing Ukraine from being used as a way for NATO to fight Russia.
In an address to the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, militaries, and the international community, Putin said that Russia is invading Ukraine to protect its allies of Donetsk and Luhansk, which it recognized as independent countries and made an alliance with days earlier.
Meanwhile, he said, “The problem is that in the territories adjacent to us – territories that were historically ours, I emphasise – an ‘anti-Russia’ hostile to us is being created, placed under full external control; [it] is intensively settled by the armed forces of NATO countries and is supplied with the most modern weapons.”
Putin also accused Ukraine of committing genocide against Russians, and said that the invasion was for the “denazification” of Ukraine. Ukraine has denied these claims.
