Why Ukraine Cannot Lose This War

And why Russia, in a deeper sense, already did

Over 1250 days in the war. Nearly four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation on the ground seems grim — but not final. Russia has managed to occupy roughly 27% of Ukraine’s territory. And yet, in the last twelve months, its military has gained only about 1%. Each advance has come at enormous cost — in men, in morale, in equipment, in legitimacy.

And in the background, something deeper is happening. The Ukrainian spirit has not collapsed. Resistance is growing, not waning. Drone strikes continue to disable airfields far behind enemy lines. Civilians adapt and persist. A nation still breathes.

This article is not about maps, nor front lines. It’s about something harder to see — and harder to defeat: the soul of a people who refuse to be erased.

Occupation Is Not Victory

Russia may still achieve military advances. With time, numbers, and attrition, it may wear down Ukrainian defenses. It may station forces in cities. It may pressure borders, launch missiles, declare some new reality from above. It may take months, or years.

Any so-called “victory” would come at unbearable cost. Tens of thousands of soldiers dead. A generation lost. The international isolation, the sanctions, the slow bleed of economy and morale. And for what? To govern people who will never truly accept it?

Occupation is not peace. It’s a wound with a delayed infection. You can suppress a people, but the spirit — the memory of freedom — will remain. Ukrainians have already seen it. They’ve already tasted it.

Resistance will come. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe in 10 years, or 30. But history shows: once the mind awakens to liberty, it cannot be silenced.

Ukraine is not fighting to become sovereign. It already is. Its institutions, elections, and civil society stand even under fire. Bombed, blockaded, broken — but not beaten.

Sovereignty is not something granted by empires. It is lived, felt, built from below. That’s why every missile strengthens Ukraine’s case. Every civilian who stays. Every teacher who keeps the school open. Every soldier who returns to rebuild.

This isn’t the story of a country trying to become something. It already is.

A Neighborhood Without Gates

There’s a story told, sometimes bitterly, sometimes as a warning: “Well, that’s what you get when you provoke the bear. When you want NATO. When you talk of gates.”

But picture a neighborhood. Most houses have locks. Some have alarms. Others — not all — have fences. But one house doesn’t. Not because it loves danger, but because it still hoped to live openly. It trusted the road it was on. After moving in, building a fence isn’t the first thing you normally do. You start living.

This house borders the gardens of a huge mansion. Fenced off and guarded for obvious reasons. Nothing wrong with that per se. Just a bit of a distance.

Now the owners of our house in question decided to build a fence too. You want to feel home and have some privacy. So the building begins. Not like a concrete wall, but a normal wooden fence. Modest.

Then trouble started. This neighbor – from the mansion starts walking by, making comments about your fence being a cheap ugly thing. It destroys their view and lowers their property value. And also very disturbing – when you fence off that area, where must the dogs poop? You are fencing off the dog’s walking area – this neighbor states. The common good you know. You dare steal from the community?

But the truth? It wasn’t the gates or fences that provoked them. It was the fear that a fence might be built. That the window might close. That the people inside would become unreachable — and the opportunity to control, and to steal would be lost.

Ukraine didn’t provoke this war. It was punished for seeking a future.

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Russia’s Moral Loss (The Cost of a Hollow Victory)

In another article — The Eurasian Covenant — we explore the longer roots of this conflict, and the path toward dignity and peace for all. But here we must say: Russia has already paid a generational price.

It has lost more soldiers than in any war since 1945. It has strangled its own economic potential. It has become, in many eyes, a pariah — not through lies, but through choices. The moral ground it once claimed — of antifascist liberation, of Slavic fraternity — is eroding.

There was a time when Russia offered something: a unifying identity, however flawed. That time is fading. Now it imposes itself on peoples who no longer choose it. And every forced claim deepens the wound.

There’s another future possible — not carved by tanks, but shaped by treaties and ties. Ukraine and Russia do not need to be enemies forever. But the road to coexistence cannot go through conquest.

Cooperation is possible. Control is not. That is the simple truth of this century.

What Ukrainians seek is not revenge. It is recognition. That alone opens the door to something lasting.

Ukraine Cannot Lose

Because what Ukraine is defending is not just territory. It is memory, dignity, sovereignty, home. And these things — when held together — can outlast even the longest war.

If it stands now, Ukraine sets a precedent: that freedom is not decided by force. That small nations matter. That the age of empires is behind us.

This is not Western triumphalism. It is human resilience.

And if the world can see that — not as strategy, but as truth — then Ukraine’s victory will already be written. Not in a headline. But in history.

To be continued in: The Eurasian Covenant

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