- January 11, 2026
- 1:43 pm
- World News
Today (January 11, 2025) marks 1418 days of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The war between Stalin and Hitler lasted 1418 days.
Hitler was replaced by Putin.
Their end will be similar.
Strength to Ukraine!
1418 days as a marker, not a “coincidence”
January 11, 2026, is a date that cuts to the nerve not because of the calendar, but because of its meaning. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has reached the mark of 1418 days — exactly the duration of the German-Soviet war of 1941–1945, which the USSR called the “Great Patriotic War” and turned into the main myth of legitimacy.
This myth contains everything: “we saved the world,” “we are invincible,” “we have the right to teach others.” And now the same number has become inconvenient for the Kremlin. Because the comparison suddenly starts to work against the aggressor.
Why direct comparisons are still dangerous
Comparing wars “by the ruler” is incorrect. World War II was a clash of industrial empires at the limit: million-strong armies, total mobilization of the economy, continuous operations of huge masses of troops.
The modern war is different. There is no “fog of war” that allowed forces to be concentrated unnoticed. Drones, satellites, digital intelligence, and electronic warfare make any movement noticeable, and deep breakthroughs rare and very costly. Because of this, an outside observer gets a false sense of a “frozen front,” although the intensity of battles and losses remains high.
And yet, comparison on one axis is possible — in terms of meaning.
For whom this war is existential
For Ukraine, this is a war for the physical existence of the state and society: for borders, for cities, for the right to speak their language, for the right not to live under occupation and “filtrations.” Ukraine cannot “get tired and step aside,” because the alternative is the loss of subjectivity.
That is why the current resistance in Ukrainian logic and public perception is a true patriotic war: the defense of native land and future.
For Russia, the war is structured differently. The Kremlin tries to conduct it in a way that maintains a “normal picture” for the rear: dosing mobilization, not disrupting the usual life of big cities, selling society the illusion that “somewhere far away a special operation is underway,” while life seems to continue.
How the Kremlin’s main myth breaks
Ukrainian assessments of 1418 days sound like this: time has ceased to be an ally of the invader. Not because the war has become easier — on the contrary, it has become harder, colder, and more “viscous.” But it has become visible what propaganda tried to hide: Russia has been waging an aggressive war longer than the USSR waged a defensive war against Nazi Germany, and yet it has not been able to achieve strategic goals.
Hence the main blow to the legend: the myth of the “Great Patriotic War” as a source of justification for the actions of the Russian army breaks against this number. The Kremlin is used to taking moral license from the past, while the reality of the present shows the opposite.
The “invincible heir of victory” looks like a force mired in positional battles, where the result is measured not by strategic turns, but by monthly attempts to advance a few kilometers at the cost of huge losses.
Important clarification: the war did not start in 2022
Outside Ukraine, the context is often “blurred”: many politicians and diplomats — out of ignorance or convenience — count the war from February 24, 2022. This is the date of the full-scale invasion.
But the Russian-Ukrainian war itself began earlier — in 2014, with Crimea and hybrid aggression in the east. Therefore, today’s 1418 days mark the hottest, broadest phase, not the beginning of the tragedy. For Ukraine, the war has been going on for more than a decade, and this changes the perspective on any “quick solutions.”
The cost and numbers: why there are disputes about methodologies, but not about the essence
Exact figures of losses in modern warfare are often closed by military censorship — and this is objective. But the Ukrainian side regularly publishes estimates of the total combat losses of Russian occupation forces, and by early 2026, these reports mention scales of a million and more total losses.
One can argue about counting methodologies. One can argue about details. But it is difficult to argue with the main point: the rate of losses for Russia has long seemed disproportionate to what it gains on the ground.
And this explains why the war turns into a trap for the regime: victory does not come, and the cost grows.
Drone war: why “like in 1943” will not happen
In the 1940s, success was measured by the pace of front advances and the depth of operations. Today, large concentrations of troops are quickly detected, which means “classic” mechanized breakthroughs often run into reconnaissance, drones, minefields, and precise logistics targeting.
Therefore, the war has become exhausting: positional battles, artillery hunting, electronic warfare, strikes on warehouses, depletion of manpower.
Slowly. But this is the modern reality.
Migration and demographics: a parallel that truly hits
There is a parameter where the parallel with the past is especially painful: mass displacement of people. Millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes. Some returned, some live between countries, some are already building a new life in the EU or overseas.
Even in a good scenario, the return will be incomplete. This means the war rewrites the country’s demographics for decades to come.
This is not an abstraction, but a personnel front: who will build and heal, who will teach children, who will start businesses and pay taxes when the weapons fall silent.
Russia as an instrument of terror
It is important to call things by their names here. Russia is conducting a war of aggression, striking cities and infrastructure, using fear as a tool of pressure on society.
Therefore, the formulation “Russia is a terrorist state” for a large part of Ukrainians and their allies is not an emotional label, but a description of practice: when missiles and drones target not only army positions but also the lives of civilians, when the destruction of civilian infrastructure becomes a means of blackmail and demoralization.
Israeli angle: why this is understood without long lectures
In Israel, the logic of a war of attrition is understood without long explanations. Security relies on the resilience of society, the discipline of the rear, an honest conversation about the cost of war, and the ability to protect people, not myths.
In Israel, this logic is understood without long lectures.
Security relies on the resilience of society, the discipline of the rear, an honest conversation about the cost of war, and the ability to protect people, not myths. Therefore, at the mark of 1418 days, the main conclusion is not in a beautiful rhyme with the past, but in a cold fixation of the present: Hitler was replaced by Putin, and the end of such regimes is usually the same — when resources are not infinite, allies fall away, and society gets tired of paying for someone else’s ambitions. NAnews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency