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Today marks the 1,040th day of war in Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched an all-out war on Ukraine. However, the war, for many Ukrainians, did not begin in 2022. The Russo-Ukrainian War actually began in February 2014, soon after Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, which prompted Russia to occupy and annex Crimea. The Vladimir Putin government also supported pro-Russian separatists who fought the Ukrainian military in the Donbas War.

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The first eight years, from 2014 to 2022, saw naval incidents and cyberwarfare. On February 24, 2022, Putin announced a "special military operation" to "demilitarise and denazify" Ukraine, even as Russia claimed it had no plans to occupy the country.

The war, which has continued in broad daylight amid sharp condemnation from many countries, has claimed countless lives. Since the 2014 War in Donbas and the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War, over a million people, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed. It has become one of the world's never-ending wars, with siege diaries from the fortress-cities of Ukraine shifting from hope to despair, then to cynicism, and ultimately to raw survivalism.

The Ugly Face Of War That Casualty Numbers Don’t Reveal

BY Vijay Prashad

Outlook has been following the conflict in Ukraine, documenting the experiences of those living through the war and how it has transformed human lives and altered the very meaning of existence.

In Outlook’s December 26, 2022 issue, ethnographer Jeffrey Witsoe wrote about the “unavoidable emotional impact of the war” and how he coped with the loss of Kyiv, his field study site, to conflict and war. 

“Young men disabled in conflict have become a common sight. It reminds one of the heroism but also the high cost involved in defending one’s homeland”. Two years since, journalists are now stating they have developed a new vocabulary of war. He also wrote about Ukraine’s war museums and how they epitomised a nation’s resolve to fight back.

In an interview with Outlook Editor Chinki Sinha, Ukrainian poet Boris Dralyuk talked about a poet’s role in a war.

In his War Diary, poet Ilya Kaminsky, the author of Deaf Republic, described the horrors of war and its paradoxes through his incisive tweets.

Mariia Shuvalova, who taught at the National University of Kyiv-Mohlya Academy, wrote on the power of memory and literature in the face of unending repression. “Russian propaganda can claim Ukraine is a fake state, but Ukrainians know the truth: they can steal our history, they can rewrite our books, but they cannot rewrite our memory”. 

Click here to read all the stories from Outlook’s December 26, 2022 issue

The Aftermath Of Wars: Why Everlasting Peace Eludes The World

BY Amir Ali

Endless wars sow endless displacement. A UNHCR report recently noted that in 2024, nearly 123 million people were forced to flee their homes due to conflict and persecution. And this is just data till June 2024. The year has been one of growing armed conflicts and multiplying climate fuelled disasters. Of the 75.9 million IDPs at the end of 2023 globally, 68.3 million were displaced by conflict and violence and 7.7 million by disasters.

Outlook’s August 2023 issue ‘Who is A Refugee’ looked at multiple facets of the global refugee crisis. Seema Guha’s story looked at the “complex issue of refugees and migrants” beyond the black and white, at a time when anti-immigration sentiment is high in Europe and western nations. “In a world wracked by war, civil and ethnic conflict, global inequality and hunger due to droughts and floods triggered by climate change, migration is but natural”. 

But the lives of refugees and immigrants, especially those forced to flee due to violence, often depict lack of apathy and reflect the gaps in public policy for immigrants. Samanwita Paul’s story looked at the paltry lives of Rohingya refugee women living near Delhi, in shanties with no water or sanitation facilities. Their fault? They escaped conflict.

Click here to read all the stories from Outlook’s 1st August 2023 issue

A year later, not much changed. In fact, 2024 saw escalated violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, with increasingly deadly attacks against Rohingya people bearing a terrifying resemblance to the atrocities of August 2017, Amnesty International reported. “Rohingya men, women and children are being killed, towns are emptying out, and vestiges of Rohingya history and identity are being eroded,” stated Amnesty International’s Myanmar Researcher Joe Freeman. 

Most refugees wistfully wait for resettlement in a country that treats them respectfully and in a dignified manner. But the dream of resettlement doesn’t become a reality for most and going back or being deported back to the conflict zones would mean being at risk of all the violence they fled in the first place.

India are currently placed fourth in the standings with 11 points from six matches, while Australia are unbeaten so far, registering six outright wins from as many games.

India has had a good performance in the Pro League thus far, having won two out of its five games in regulation time. The team's exceptional resilience was put on display when they defeated the Dutch and Spain in shootouts, thereby earning valuable bonus points. It is currently placed fourth in the Pro League standings with 10 points from five matches.

Only about 8 percent of the total global refugee population in 2023 were declared as needing resettlement by UNHCR and only 0.32 percent were finally resettled.

With many countries in the European Union and others like the United States voting for pro-right, openly anti-immigrant, and nationalistic parties and leaders to power in 2024, the future of the global refugee population remains uncertain. 

Outlook’s upcoming issue will again take a look at these stories on unending conflict and displacementmilyon88, and more as we continue documenting the temporal and emotional impact of war and resilience with which the human spirit survives one after another.