The Ceasefire Question: Was The War Worth It?
Three Years. One Million Casualties. Zero Victory.
Late last week Vladimir Putin announced an Easter ceasefire, promising to suspend all attacks on Ukraine during Easter Sunday.
“During the meeting in the Kremlin, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief heard a report by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov on the situation on the line of contact and said that the Russian side stopped all hostilities from 18:00 [Moscow time] on April 19 to 00:00 [Moscow time] on April 21,” the report said.
Ever skeptical, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy pledged to reciprocate any “genuine” ceasefire.
While they hit “pause” on war for a day, both sides would do well to reflect on what three years of war have brought.
One Million Casualties?
Casualty estimates are just that—estimates.
How many dead are there? How many have been wounded? We do not know precisely.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies has estimated Russia’s total casualties at approximately 172,000 killed, and 611,000 wounded as of early January.
In September of last year, a confidential Ukrainian estimate leaked to the Wall Street Journal speculated that Ukraine had suffered at that point 80,000 dead, and 400,000 wounded. Those numbers have only risen since then.
Even by the most conservative estimates, the total casualties for both sides are well over one million, and the total dead are well over 200,000.
The war in Ukraine long ago became the bloodiest conflict since World War Two.
Stalemate
One reality of this war is absolutely certain: this war is a stalemate.
In April 2022, Russian forces held a jagged line through eastern Ukraine. Two years later, that line has barely shifted. Despite hundreds of thousands of casualties, neither side has made meaningful territorial gains.
A replay of three years of front-line maps shows what words cannot: the lines barely moved, while the body count soared.
Off the battlefield, three years and counting of attritional warfare have left Russia's economy in shambles.
Europe outside of Ukraine has avoided casualties, but their economies are no less a train wreck.
After three years of war, over a million casualties and hundreds of thousands dead, and three years of economic wreckage across the continent, this is what both sides have “won”.
Worth It?
I have a simple question to both sides in this war: has this war been worth it?
Has this war been worth over a million casualties?
Has this war been worth the economic damage to the whole of Europe?
Can Russia or Europe truly believe when this war finally does end that either side will have greater security, power, and influence than it did before?
An Easter ceasefire is a brief respite for the living, but to honor the dead there are questions which must be answered.
Amen…excellent question to ask…too bad no one is listening….
The larger lesson here is that “government” - which is just a bureaucratic bunch of faceless individuals - truly does not care about you. Whatever assurances politicians give you, they will ultimately do whatever is in their personal best interest, not yours. That’s certainly what Zelensky and Putin have been doing.
I’d like to think that a great many individuals in Europe have noticed that one million people have been injured or killed for nothing. They see their own politicians leading the EU countries onto paths that are obviously not in the best interests of the majority of European citizens. I’d like to think that they are silently but frantically looking for a way to avoid the looming insanity.
So, I’m hoping Trump will be bold. He has little to lose by trying. Go ahead, Mr. President, buy Crimea - with funds from a bunch of billionaires, if necessary - and give it to Russia, if that’s what it will take to establish a lasting peace. (Or you whatever unorthodox strategy will work!) the European people will be (silently) grateful for any course that spares them.