3 Years of War in Ukraine

Today Ukraine has a sad anniversary - exactly 3 years ago Mr. Putin started his full-scale war to annex Ukraine to Russia. I want to summarize my thoughts on this war here. I have written about a dozen articles on this topic.
I have many complaints about Russians, but I also have many complaints about Ukrainians, too. I tried to be objective in my opinion.


1. All the reasons voiced by Mr. Putin about "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine and "non-expansion of NATO to the east" are lies. The main driving forces of aggression were Mr. Putin's imperial ambitions, his desire to restore the USSR within its former borders and Russia's financial capabilities. The number of Russians who die in this adventure does not bother him, especially since most of them sincerely want to punish wayward Ukrainians, and receive money for participating in military actions, so they made their choice. Each person decides for himself whether to listen to official propaganda or not: Russia's borders are open and whoever wants can leave (and about 1.5-2 million people really left).

Mr Putin also had personal reasons for taking revenge on Ukraine: the Ukrainians had not allowed his protégé Mr. Yanukovych to become their president during the “Orange Revolution” in 2004, which did not stop them electing the same Mr. Yanukovych the president in 2010, and then kicking him and his cronies out of the country during the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014. This might set a bad example for Russian citizens who could follow the Ukrainians.

2. Mr. Putin had flooded the Ukrainian government, army and secret services with his agents in advance and took Crimea in 2014 because he could not leave Russia's Black Sea Fleet without its usual base. The corrupt elite of Ukraine easily gave up the peninsula and I am sure that the Ukrainian military in Crimea got orders from Kyiv not to give out weapons and ammunition to soldiers. Combat units of the Ukrainian army proudly left Crimea without weapons while singing the Ukrainian anthem.

If Mr. Putin had stopped there and not gone further, Russia for sure would not have fallen under Western sanctions, but would have quietly sold oil and gas until now and would still be sitting in the G8. However, Mr. Putin unofficially introduced his troops into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine under the guise of local "militia" in the same 2014. That was when the Russo-Ukrainian war began which is still going on and which is still being carried on the shoulders of civilian and military patriots of Ukraine. It was they who prevented Mr. Putin from advancing beyond Crimea and two eastern regions in 2014, and then a rather long relative pause arose when Ukrainians tried to reach an agreement with Russians using the international mediators (the so-called “Minsk agreements” which led to nothing).

3. Mr. Putin's patience snapped somewhere in the middle of 2021 and on February 24, 2022, he officially sent his troops into Ukraine, starting a full-scale war. However, he made a big mistake.
Mr. Putin knew the corrupt Ukrainian elite very well and assumed they would not fight and quickly surrender the country to him. I think he gave away quite a lot of money to their representatives for support and rightly expected a quick victory. This is where the Russian idea of ​​"Kyiv in 3 days" came from. And it would have been so, but Mr. Putin, as before, did not take into account the Ukrainian people. I heard from my Ukrainian friends that President Zelensky is a reluctant hero, because the volunteers and military patriots did not allow him (or his cronies) to surrender the country to the Russians. "Kyiv in 3 days" turned into "without Kyiv in 3 years" for Mr. Putin, and this is a great achievement of the Ukrainians.

4. Mr. Putin and Russia deserve punishment for starting a war of conquest. Nothing can excuse military action on foreign soil. A just war is waged only on one's own territory to repel someone else's aggression. However, the UN was powerless to punish Russia, and the US under the leadership of aged Mr. Biden and NATO, which were considered the "global policemen," have been very much afraid of a conflict with a nuclear state. Some sanctions were imposed on Russia which the Russians have quite successfully bypassed and continue to earn money for their war by trading oil and gas. The West was unable to unite, give Ukraine the necessary weapons in time and thus punish the violator of the rules with Ukraine's hands. The West was even unable (unwilling?) to close the sea straits in northern Europe for the "shadow fleet" of Russia which transported about 60% of Russian oil and oil products.

Russia, however, managed to attract China (secretly), Iran and North Korea to its side, which help it with weapons, equipment, technology and even soldiers.

5. Ukraine is a victim of Russian aggression and deserves pity and help. This was all more or less provided by the countries of the collective West, otherwise Ukraine’s resistance would not have lasted even a month against a superior force. Ukraine simply would not have had enough finances for that. War is an expensive stuff.
What is interesting though: the war has been going on for 3 years as for now and Mr. Trump is even planning to end it somehow, but officially the parties are not at war with each other. Russia is conducting a "special military operation", and Ukraine has not yet declared war on Russia and is constantly extending its "martial law".

6. At the very beginning of military actions in 2022, there was a huge influx of Ukrainians willing to fight, but the authorities could not even arm them properly and did not take advantage of this chance. In general, the Ukrainian elites stingily and untimely pay for the military labor of their soldiers simply because of their thievish mentality. Really, why?
After all, there is Article 65 of the Constitution which states that defense of the Motherland is the sacred duty of every Ukrainian. Did volunteers and patriots want to fight the Russians? Well, go ahead and fight. For free, because it is your sacred duty. Meanwhile, the elites themselves make good money on the war with the help of various corruption schemes. The elites of Ukraine have always lived well at the expense of the ignorant people of Ukraine.

7. I have long ago come to the conclusion that the Ukrainians are basically “thieves” by their mentality, and the Russians are “bandits.” The difference, in my opinion, is small, but we are talking about Ukraine here.
The thievish mentality of the Ukrainian elites has not changed in the last 30+ years, but they are the ones who make decisions for the entire nation. The ignorant people do not like how they live, but are forced to participate, so the country is heavily divided and as a whole behaves inappropriately. It reminds me of an imbecile. Outwardly, it seems to have everything like other countries - borders, Сonstitution, government, people, democracy, army, courts, businesses, Internet, but all this together works poorly and it becomes clear that it is an imbecile. Apparently, this is why Ukraine is not accepted into EU and NATO, and rightly so. The mentalities are too different.

8. Over time, it became clear that with more than 1 million military personnel in Ukraine, about 250 thousand volunteers - soldiers and officers - are constantly fighting on the front line. They are tired, their numbers are decreasing, but the authorities do not replace them or demobilize them, because they do not want to carry out an unpopular mobilization. The majority of Ukrainian servicemen are engaged in providing combat operations in rear units, occasionally being on the front lines. In addition, the majority of the population does not take part in the war, many conscripts evade defending the Motherland despite the demand of Constitution, so they are often caught on the streets and forcibly put into the military buses (so called “busification”). Ukrainians in the rear live their lives, paying almost no attention to the war, so many Ukrainian military complain about the lack of soldiers, not weapons. And potential soldiers do not want to fulfill their constitutional duty for free and do not trust their elites. The nation is divided. The war cannot be won in that way with any foreign help.

9. Now, with Mr. Trump becoming the US President, things have become much more complicated for Ukraine.
He promised to establish a ceasefire "in 24 hours" and, apparently, really wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize at any cost. It is much easier to put pressure on Ukraine by depriving it of aid, than on Russia. President Zelensky tried to attract the US with the idea of ​​joint development of rare-earth resources of Ukraine. The Trump administration proposed a controversial and, apparently, enslaving agreement for Ukraine, without giving any security guarantees in the event of a Russian attack. The parties are bargaining over this document now and Mr. Zelensky does not want to sign the agreement because "10 generations of Ukrainians will pay this money" without guarantees. The truth usually angers Mr. Trump. The issue is being suspended so far.

10. Europe will not be able to replace the US in terms of supplying the required amount of weapons to Ukraine and, most likely, will not be able to deploy 100 thousand peacekeepers, which Mr. Zelensky mentioned earlier, on the current contact line of the warring parties (if it comes to a peace agreement).

Today, representatives of 37 different countries gathered in Kyiv for a summit dedicated to the 3rd anniversary of the war and many promise to increase military and financial aid to Ukraine. Europe has only now (and only due to Mr. Trump) begun to understand that its only reliable protection (or rather, shield) from Putin's Russia is Ukraine, and not the US or NATO. Unfortunately, this understanding is belated; it was necessary to help Ukraine as much as possible without looking back at the US from the very beginning, even out of a sense of self-preservation.

11. Russia has recently stepped up its offensive in the southwest and has now sharply increased the number of its bombings of all Ukraine. For example, in the last two days, the Russians have launched more than 500 combat drones - a record number for the entire war. My friends in Kyiv sleep in the hallway of their apartment every night, fully clothed, ready to go out. They are very tired of the war.

Mr. Putin is putting a lot of pressure on Ukraine before the negotiations with the US, and it is very possible that Mr. Trump will agree to his conditions and pass it off as his victory, so Europe and Ukraine will lose. This is sad, because evil has not been punished, the victim of aggression has not received sufficient aid, there is no even talk of returning the captured territory or reparations. Europe has wasted a lot of money and didn’t eliminate the threat of its war.

Ukraine for 3 years has got a half-destroyed country and lost more than half a million of its citizens killed and wounded. Millions of Ukrainians have found another place to live in Ukraine or in other countries. This is all very bad, but ... It could not have been otherwise because independent Ukraine has been acting incorrectly for many years.

12. Over 30+ years of independence, Ukrainians have not been able to truly separate from Russia and create their own statehood, like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did. Ukraine has continued to depend on Russia for oil and gas all these years, which is impossible without the participation of the country's top officials and its elites. That’s what I meant above by “Mr. Putin knew the corrupt Ukrainian elite very well."

All the years of independence, the Ukrainian elites tore Ukraine into pieces and tried to sell their piece to someone - Russians, Americans or Europeans. The politically active people were divided into parts and each part voted for "their" thieves in power, and the rest of the Ukrainians watched all this indifferently. As a result, the people became poorer, the elites got richer, the country degraded, divided into parts, lost part of its territory, but by some miracle (thanks to many patriots and volunteers) it still has not become Mr. Putin's prey.

And then the savior of the Russians, Mr. Trump, appeared with his dream of a Nobel Prize and a great desire to solve everything quickly. He did not allow Ukraine and Europe to the negotiating table with the Russians, because they would insist on a fair solution, the return of territories and reparations, and Mr. Trump needs it "in 24 hours." If Ukraine somehow does not receive effective security guarantees (but what guarantees can be given by the pathological liar Mr. Trump?) and fails to avoid the presidential elections in Ukraine that only Mr. Putin needs, it will face a loss in the war, mass emigration, and the end of its existence within its current borders.
Ukraine keeps paying for its 30+ years of foolishness.

13. I know that no matter how and when the war in Ukraine ends, all sides will later regret their participation. It comes just from my experience. A choice exists only in the imagination, in reality it is already embedded in people by their nature and nurture.
- Ukraine has been preparing for war with Russia since 2014 and did not want (could not) capitulate in February 2022. It is very possible that now it will have to accept Mr. Putin's terms from Mr. Trump after 3 years of war, having several hundred thousand killed, maimed, millions emigrated and the country's infrastructure destroyed. Ukrainians have not seen that their main enemy was their corrupt elites, and the aggressive Mr. Putin is a secondary problem. Ukraine is deeply divided between the elite and the people, and no divided nation can ever defeat a superior enemy. An example of this is the small but united Chechen Republic of Ichkeria which defeated a fairly strong Russia at that time in the First Russo-Chechen War (1994-1996) without anyone's help.

- The collective West could not simply hand Ukraine over to Mr. Putin, but it was necessary to provide maximum aid from the very beginning without regard for Russian nuclear weapons, and to introduce and monitor the implementation of tough sanctions against Russia by all.

- Mr. Putin could not help but start this war because he despises the effeminate West, the corrupt elite of Ukraine and thinks that he has enough resources to impose his point of view on the whole world.

14. If it were up to me to decide whether to help Ukraine in February 2022, I would immediately say “no” just because I know the Ukrainians. It is useless to help an imbecile because he is inadequate and “his right hand does not know what the left hand is doing”. He will crack nuts with presented microscope and light a cigarette with lent $100 bill. He is nothing but trouble. He must first become “normal.” This is exactly what IMF, World Bank, EU and Biden’s US were trying to achieve with Ukraine, but for that the national mentality had to be changed which only ordeals and time could make.

Real ordeal started on February 24, 2022, but only in February 2025 the Ukrainian government decided to pay a million hryvnia (about $25,000, which is a lot for Ukraine) to young people (18-24 years old) for a year-long contract of service in the active army. Probably, now Ukraine will get some motivated fighters, but another problem arises - what about those who carried the war on their backs for all 3 years? Do they have to be paid, too? But there is not enough money for all of them… And yet they just fulfilled their military duty according to the Constitution ...

This is “inadequacy” or “the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.” Ukraine had to start paying its soldiers well in February 2022 (and in February 2014 it would be even better). However, it was easier for Ukrainian elites to appropriate this money and drive the people to the front with the help of the Constitution and “busification.”
Unfortunately, the short-sighted and ignorant Ukrainians “never lose a chance to lose a chance.”