On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine, upsetting pretty much the entire international community. Early on some people called for a solution where “Putin would save his face”, falsely assuming he was a rational actor with whom you could negotiate. I was from the beginning of the opinion that Putin must not be allowed to “save face” but rather deeply humiliated, underpants pulled over his head, to expose his true ridiculous, psychopathic, kleptocratic self to the Russian people.

The war has now been waging for 1197 days as of writing this, and a few days ago Ukraine did a brilliant attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, truly humiliating their airforce. Operation Spider Web lasted, so we’ve been told, for 18 months, during which Ukraine snuck several truckloads of FPV drones with explosives to Russia, placed them near military air fields, and then finally simultaneously launched swarms of drones from those trucks, destroying billions of dollars worth of irreplaceable aircraft Russia had been using to bomb Ukraine. The New York Times, for example, has good coverage of the event.

In Finland we’ve been following the war with particular interest, given that Russia is our neighbor too. The Parliament is currently discussing Finland leaving the Ottawa Treaty (the one banning anti-personnel mines) which Finland joined in 2012. My take on the treaty has been from the beginning that Finland should not have imposed limitations on itself on how we can defend ourselves. The same strategic effect as joining the treaty could’ve been achieved more easily if we had all just agreed that if Russia attacks, we’ll all shoot ourselves in the foot. Heck, even I’ve been trained to use certain tripwire-based tree-mounted anti-personnel mines – which are no longer in use.

This personal experience brings me to my next point. There was a great write-up on yesterday’s paper on how in some countries people view their armed forces as a separate branch from the rest of society. The civilians may treat the army with suspicion, and their relationship with national defense may be lukewarm at best. In Finland, however, we have a large reservist army, almost a million people, so everyone either has been through a military service or knows many people who have done that. Thus the army is not separate from the rest of the society but very much an integral part of it. This keeps people interested in defending their homeland because ultimately it’s up to us all to do that, not just “the army”.

The Kyiv Independent has been reporting the number of Russian casualties as estimated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of the war. They should be taken with a grain of salt obviously, but the current toll of Russian casualties is just about to exceed one million troops, killed and injured combined. I looked up a figure for each quarter of the war and plotted it up. It’s pretty grim – and it doesn’t even include all the Ukrainian casualties. Find it from the bottom of this post.

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while already. I wouldn’t want people to forget about this war, to think it’s “normal” in any way. That’s why I try to watch every video by WarLeaks who uploads 15-30 minute Ukraine War Report videos 1-3 times a month. He watches hundreds of Telegram videos of people getting blown to pieces so that you don’t have to, and indeed in YouTube you can’t have that kind of material, so his videos are edited to be… not exactly family friendly, but with the gory parts cut out anyway. There’s also the aforementioned Kyiv Independent for good information, and another X account called Special Kherson Cat for timely information about the latest developments. Darth Putin also delivers pertinent parody and commentary.

I do confess that as I am following the situation in Ukraine I don’t have the mental capacity to follow, say, the war in Gaza too. However, there are other people who do that instead, so in the big picture it all evens out.

I’ve also donated money to Ukraine, both for humanitarian and military causes. I have used and can recommend at least United24, Saint Javelin, Zero Line, and SignMyRocket.com. It would also be nice if countries would finally start donating enough equipment to Ukraine for them to win the war, not just enough for them to not lose it. Limitations on how the Ukrainians may use the donated long-range weapons were recently lifted, which is great news.

As of writing this Finland has donated EUR 2.7 billion worth of defense materiel to Ukraine, totaling over 400 truckloads, which I find commendable. The exact contents have not been disclosed, but everything has been based on requests from Ukraine. The way I see it is that the Finnish Defense Forces exist because of Russia. If our gear can be used to defend against that same threat – even outside our borders – then it’s fulfilling its purpose. After all, any tank blown up in the fields of Ukraine is a tank that’s never going to cross the Finnish border.

Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦