January 11, the Russo-Ukrainian War Will Be as Long as World War II Was for Russia

[“The Fourth Year in a Row,” sometimes called “Four Years,” by the great Russian poet-singer Bulat Okudzhava, who had himself fought in the war.]

I’m reckoning World War II from Russia’s perspective, beginning with the Nazi invasion on June 22, 1941 (as it happens, the Nazis bombed Kiev on that first day of the war) and ending with the Russian V-E Day, May 9, 1945. Naturally others, whether Americans, Poles, or Chinese, will give you different lengths. I’m also reckoning the Russo-Ukrainian war from the February 24, 2022 full-scale invasion; one could also go back to 2014, the date of the Russian actions in the Donbass and the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea.

Of course, the Russo-Ukrainian War is vastly smaller in scale than World War II. Just as one data point, for all the pointless loss of life in this war (estimated by some at 250K-375K for the Russians and 80K-150K for the Ukrainians), those deaths are about 2% of the estimated 20M-27M aggregate Soviet (mostly Russian and Ukrainian) deaths as a result of War II. Still, the length is itself an important dimension, so I thought I’d note it.