Russia Will Not Stop

Feb 24 2025 The Guardian

An Opinion piece by Yaroslav Hrytsak, a historian and professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv

Putin plays the long game. He has punished Ukraine – and he won’t stop there

I have a friend, an American author, who writes about war. Over the past decades, he has been to South Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and other conflict zones. In the case of Ukraine, he said one thing stood out: here it was obvious who was the aggressor and who was the victim. Alongside Bosnia, Ukraine’s resistance to Russia remains, in his opinion, one of two truly just wars.

After three years of fighting a just war against Putin’s aggression, we are now facing, with Donald Trump, an unjust peace. Ukraine will lose lands and will not receive compensation for its losses. War crimes will go unpunished and Ukrainians will not be provided with the security guarantees needed to protect them from future Russian attack.

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I would love to be wrong, but my historian’s gut tells me that in February 2022 the world entered a decade of war. The saying “if you want peace, prepare for war” remains as relevant after three years of war in Ukraine as it has been for 2,000 years.