On August 23, 2023, in the small Ukrainian city of Kovel, not far from the Belarussian border, I interviewed “Wolf,” a commander in one of Ukraine’s civilian-defense units.

Wolf believes the war will not end soon and predicts it will be fought for three to four years. “It’s history — World War II, Stalin, Putin,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how many dead people there are, Putin will not stop. He could even lose 5 million or 10 million, he will not stop. Look what happened in Chechnya.” He’s not expressing fear or dread as he says this, just casually assessing the ruthlessness and seemingly endless tolerance for casualties that the Russian dictator has already demonstrated. But Wolf also believes that his countrymen are even more determined. “Ukrainians have never relied on their government — whether it’s [president Volodymyr] Zelensky, or [former president Petro] Poroshenko. We rely on ourselves. We won’t wait for orders to do something. Offense, defense, assault, ambush — just do it. This is our land.” Later he added, “They can come, but nobody lives. . . . We are accustomed to everything. Ukrainians can live everywhere. Even in the desert, we will find water.”

Wolf believes the war will not end soon and predicts it will be fought for three to four years. “It’s history — World War II, Stalin, Putin,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how many dead people there are, Putin will not stop. He could even lose 5 million or 10 million, he will not stop. Look what happened in Chechnya.” He’s not expressing fear or dread as he says this, just casually assessing the ruthlessness and seemingly endless tolerance for casualties that the Russian dictator has already demonstrated.

But Wolf also believes that his countrymen are even more determined. “Ukrainians have never relied on their government — whether it’s [president Volodymyr] Zelensky, or [former president Petro] Poroshenko. We rely on ourselves. We won’t wait for orders to do something. Offense, defense, assault, ambush — just do it. This is our land.” Later he added, “They can come, but nobody lives. . . . We are accustomed to everything. Ukrainians can live everywhere. Even in the desert, we will find water.”

Today is the fourth anniversary of the start of the Russian full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine; just about every Ukrainian will tell you that the war really began with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and continued with the “little green men” attacks during the intervening years.

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I can understand Americans being skeptical that the Ukrainians will be able to take back all the territory seized during the war. That’s roughly one-fifth of their country, and the Ukrainians have paid a terrible price in blood in the past four years. The U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that “Ukrainian forces likely suffered somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, including killed, wounded, and missing, and between 100,000 and 140,000 fatalities between February 2022 and December 2025.” Russian bombs, drones and other attacks killed more than 15,000 Ukrainian civilians and injured more than 41,000.

While you can point to some Ukrainian counteroffensive successes here and there, overall the battle lines haven’t budged much from the first year of the war.

What I can’t understand is Americans who have bought into this line, pushed by the Kremlin and its allies, that Russia can and will win the war. (God help you if you’ve been listening to Douglas MacGregor for the past four years.) As bad as the Ukrainian casualties have been, the Russian casualties are stunning. The Economist’s model “suggests that Russian casualties are now between 1.1 million and 1.4 million, of whom 230,000-430,000 are dead. That would mean one in 25 Russian men between the ages of 18 and 49 may have been killed or severely wounded since the start of the full-scale war.” The CSIS estimate is in the middle of that range, calculating that Russia has suffered 1.2 million casualties, with as many as 325,000 killed.

For perspective, the U.S. suffered 58,220 military fatal casualties during the Vietnam War. So, the Russians have suffered the equivalent of 3.9 to 7.3 Vietnam wars’ worth of killed in action, in just four years. Part of gargantuan number reflects the Russian philosophy of ground troops being expendable, a philsophy that can be summarized by the term “human meat waves,” and part of it reflects the fact that the Ukrainians have become extremely proficient with drone warfare.

Of course, Ukraine’s ability to fight the war increases when the U.S. government and our European allies help them, and decreases when the U.S. government chooses to not help them. Since Trump took office, Congress has not even considered another aid package to the Ukrainians, but “a substantial amount of the aid appropriated under the Biden administration is still in the pipeline, and deliveries of aid packages have continued, although on two occasions the Trump administration temporarily paused some deliveries. As of December 31, 2025, the U.S. had disbursed 58 percent of the $188 billion in spending related to the conflict (U.S. spending is first appropriated, then obligated, then disbursed).”

Americans can debate which weapons are needed for U.S. priorities elsewhere in the world, but it’s worth noting that the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency has approved the transfer and sales of a wide variety of weapons systems to all kinds of allies, from Argentina to Vietnam, year after year. Since Trump took office, Europe has largely picked up the slack; in 2025, “European military aid rose by 67 percent above the 2022–2024 average, while non-military aid increased by 59 percent.”

Still, it is mind-boggling to hear our president talk about Russia and Ukraine as if they are equally at fault for the war, or are morally indistinguishable. The Russian occupation in Ukrainian territories is brutal and barbaric, with “widespread and systematic use of torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees, as well as sexual violence and executions.” Particular malevolence is aimed at Ukraine’s Protestant churches. One out of every six schools in Ukraine has been damaged or destroyed by fighting and bombs. The World Health Organizations has documented “at least 2,881 attacks on health care in Ukraine, affecting health workers, facilities, ambulances and medical warehouses.” The hospital I visited in February 2025 was bombed several months later.

Whether or not the current and future versions of the Russian militaries will have the capability to effectively attack Europe, there is little doubt that Vladimir Putin would like to explore that option; Russian agents are already engaged in “gray zone” warfare and sabotage against NATO countries. drones operated by Russians already fly into the airspace of Germany and Lithuania.

And yet, the American stance on the Russian invasion is stuck in a twisted version of the repeating cycle from Groundhog Day: President Trump announces some new summit or talks, the Ukrainians say they’re open to a deal, the Russians make new demands, the talks break up, Russia bombs civilian targets some more, then President Trump announces some new summit or talks again.

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