February 24, 2026

Four long years, four short years

As a Baby Boomer, I experienced the Cold War. I felt the fear my mother had during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. I was a young boy and did not understand the events of that time. I got no explanation and was given no comfort. But my parents meant well, wanting to shelter their children from the big, bad world.

I remember (but needed to look up the date) the famous line in a speech given in Berlin on June 12, 1987 by Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!“ I clearly remember the stunning collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2005 Vladimir Putin remarked that the collapse of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”.

In 1994 Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum. In exchange for security assurances, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. The loss of trust in the United States did not begin with Donald Trump.

In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine, occupied it, and then annexed it. The International response was weak, to say the least. Sanctions were imposed and United Nations passed resolutions.

On February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. I wrote an essay About the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, posted March 8, 2022 on my website. The first sentence read, Day after day I have a line from a 1980s rock song on a loop in my head: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). I still feel fine most days but it is getting harder.

Today I am wearing this T-shirt

I reread my essay and cringed at one line I wrote but some other lines were insightful. And I had forgotten how deeply involved I had been with this war. I still care and I still think it is important for Ukraine to win. And I am saddened by how Ukraine has had to fight with inadequate support from other countries. And I am impressed with how Ukraine has been able to continue the fight.

AI gives me this summary of the human cost of this war.

As the full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year, the human cost has reached unprecedented levels for a modern conflict. Estimates of total military casualties—including killed, wounded, and missing—are on track to reach 2 million by the spring of 2026…

Russian Forces:

• Total Casualties: Approximately 1.2 million (killed, wounded, and missing).

Ukrainian Forces:

• Total Casualties: Estimated between 500,000 and 600,000.

“We want an end to the war, but not the end of Ukraine.”

— Volodymyr Zelensky, in his New Year’s Eve address (December 31, 2025)