On the 24^th February 2022, the world changed. Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in an attempt to “demilitarise” and “de-nazify” a thriving democracy. Overnight, 44 million people have been forced to either fight for their lives or flee their homes.  

One of these people is a 17-year-old named Nesterov Oleh Yurovich. As he sits cross legged on the floor of a hostel in Poland, you would not believe that this boy is desperate to fight for his and his family’s life. “I feel helpless, I want to help my country, but I can’t”.  

406 civilian casualties have already been recorded within 13 days of this war, this doesn’t even include the deaths of soldiers involved. Western countries have acted with huge economic sanctions aiming to dent the Russian efforts to capture areas of Ukraine. This is in an attempt to reduce this without actually stepping our foot in it. 

This suffering we see from the safety of the UK is painful to watch and people like Oleh are being forced to leave their families behind. This cruelty must end, and this is why we pose ourselves the question, “how much longer will Ukraine suffer?”. 

From the perspective of a Oleh, the answer is optimistic. “I think it will end in 3 to 4 days”. He explained that the Ukrainian army is strong, and the people are resilient, they will not let Russia walk all over them. He believes that over fifty percent of the Russian army has already been destroyed. “I’m sure we will win the war”.  Some are simply filled with rage. When asked, “what do you think of Putin?”, the reply was simply, “f*ck you”.  

With approximately 900,000 active military personnel, the second largest air force in the world and an army of hackers you would expect the invasion to have been swift and brutal. Multiple reasons are leading to what many believe to be a Russian defeat. A huge part of this is Ukraine’s unity and impressive military force that has kept Russian troops at bay. Global outrage has really proved that the rest of the world can unite against an evil force. In this case this is a 5”7 bald man. 

A bald man who is deploying tactics which experts across the world are perplexed by. The biggest mystery being the lack of use of its huge air force. Of course, air strikes have been carried out however multiple weapons are yet to make an appearance in this war.  

Of course, a win or lose situation is not necessarily how this will come to an end however with unrealistic demands being made by Putin himself it is looking unlikely that there can be a peaceful solution.  

Mounting support from the rest of the world is helping Ukraine secure itself to be a mighty contender in this horrific event. British people continue to show their support with many citizens attempting to join the fight. One of these included a British gym owner named Leon Dawson. 

Two of the greatest heavyweight boxing champions of the world Vitali and Vladimir Klitschko have joined the fight in their home country. Vitali Klitschko aims to defend the city of Kyiv which he is the mayor of. 

Despite the horror that is this war, the reason it is being prolonged is that despite Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons he is yet to. This of course would achieve his intentions however would most likely cause the end of the world. Nuclear weapons have developed so much since the cold war that now any threat of use of nuclear weapons would cause mass destruction. The threat of death is part of the reasons everybody else is uniting. 

A decision made by one man has shaken the earth to its core. It has affected millions of lives in millions of ways, and it will continue to do so. The inability to see the pointlessness of an invasion such as this is what is leading to the death of thousands and potentially millions.  

Ideological insecurity has wiggled its way inside of Vladimir Putin’s mind and this is breaking point. This war will come to an end. The lack of willingness to quite literally ‘bring out the big guns’ may cause this to last for years but a willingness to, could highly likely result in yours, mine, and every bodies death.  

But this has happened before, sanctions are weakening Russia and the whole world (well most of it) has united against a common evil force. His protection means justice will be served, it might be hard, long, and painful but we will get there. 

This awful situation has proved that the world can come together, and that is a good thing, no matter how bad it is right now.