Ukraine

Shortlysts -  This week, the war between Russia and Ukraine became a longer-lasting conflict than the First World War. World War I lasted four years, three months, and fourteen days, a time span the Ukraine-Russia war surpassed on Thursday after entering its one thousand five hundred and sixty-ninth day. Diplomatic negotiations have continued to falter, and combat in Ukraine has continued with no end in sight.

Due to a lack of independent observers in Ukraine and deliberate efforts by both sides to conceal their own casualty figures, the true number of people killed and wounded is likely to remain unknown for the remainder of the conflict.

The duration of the war indicates a troubling reality of the modern world, that wars are much easier to start than to end. When the war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2022, Russian leaders indicated they expected a relatively short conflict, which they thought would be concluded in a matter of weeks. Declassified documents have shown that Soviet leaders thought much the same thing about their military campaign in Afghanistan in 1979, which they believed would last no more than six months but ended up taking almost a decade before a humiliating Soviet retreat.