The war in Ukraine assumed international dimensions the moment Russian armoured columns rolled across the border in February 2022. Russian soldiers, seen here running along Red Square in central Moscow on September 29, 2022, as the square was sealed before a ceremony of the incorporation of occupied Ukrainian territories into Russia Russia is no Iran or Serbia The likelihood of a quick end to hostilities is remote. A more likely scenario is protracted fighting leaving both sides exhausted but unwilling to admit defeat, resulting in a frozen conflict or an eventual uneasy truce. The short answer: While each conflict is unique and tends to defy history, a clear-cut defeat of either side in this war is unlikely, said experts. Now, as the bombardment of Ukraine enters another year, what do past conflicts, especially those of the modern era, tell us about how the war might end? It is the kind of conflict that Margaret Macmillan, war historian and emeritus professor at the University of Oxford, said “we didn’t think we’d see” again. Never,” United States President Joe Biden said in Poland last week, a day after a previously unannounced visit to Kyiv. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Meanwhile, Western powers have pledged coveted battle tanks to Ukraine, and there is much talk of a new Russian spring offensive. Russia is throwing waves of recruits and mercenaries into close-quarters battles around towns like Bakhmut and Vuhledar. Like Stalin’s invasion of Finland in the Winter War of 1939, the Russian army is bogged down and bloodied by a much smaller, outgunned enemy.īoth sides are now digging in as Moscow’s “special military operation”, which was intended to last a matter of days, grinds into another year of attritional warfare. Though recorded in 21st-century fashion through up-close-and-personal shots from mobile phone cameras and high-definition drone footage, the images being captured – of artillery duels and trench warfare – have a distinctly last-century feel to them. The war in Ukraine conjures up a strong sense of historical déjà vu.
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