The war between Russians and Ukrainians is a crusher of men. A figure recently disclosed by the British authorities is dizzying: nearly 500,000 Russians have been killed since February 2022, indicates Anne Keast-Butler, head of the cyber intelligence service (GCHQ). The number of injured and missing is almost double. London did not give equivalent figures for Ukraine but the most recent estimates – in December 2025 – gave 100,000 to 140,000 dead and 400,000 to 500,000 injured and missing. Added to this are the civilian losses caused by the waves of airstrikes launched by Moscow.
There is also other unseen devastation inflicted by Russian aggression. The number of births in Ukraine is in free fall: half as many in 2025 as in 2018. A figure which can be explained by the exile of millions of Ukrainian women, often already mothers, at the start of the conflict. And by the uncertainty of the future, for those who remained in the country. The war seems like it will never end. Negotiations are at a standstill. The emissaries of the Trump administration are today monopolized by Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. No compromise is possible today on the main issue of a possible ceasefire: control of the territories of Donbass, more particularly those that Russia has failed to conquer after four years of clashes.
This war resembles a trap that traps the belligerents. On the Ukrainian side, the fight for the nation is often described as existential. But there is also an individual issue. The spirit of resistance, deeply rooted in the population, leads many young women and men to question the transmission of life while facing death. It is also by this yardstick that the hope of a people is expressed.
