Imagine the whole of WashU’s student body, undergraduate and graduate students, disappearing over the three weeks of Winter Break — more than 17,000 people. That is the speed at which casualties are occurring in the Russia-Ukraine war since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On Feb. 24, 2022, 43.5 million people woke up to a new reality: the destruction of their land and the loss of their peaceful homes.

Since then, over 1.1 million people have died or been wounded, and more than 10 million people have left their homes. 

This article aims to discuss three things: one, factual statistics; two, the “reasons” that the Russian government gave to start the genocide of Ukrainians; and three, what could be done by other countries and people to stop the war. 

As a student, I find it vitally important to inform the WashU student body on the severity of the war we face at home.

Students seem to understand the severity of the war between Israel and Hamas. I do not wish to compare the atrocities of these wars, but I want to use the Israel-Hamas war as a measurement for understanding the drastic scale of the war in Ukraine.   

This is especially true right now, as American President Donald Trump falsely accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being a dictator, and the U.S. has sided with Russia on a recent UN Security Council resolution. Americans should be concerned, because America is failing to maintain its significant role, outlined in the Budapest Memorandum, of protecting the safety of my home and my people. 

Let’s start by understanding the size of the biggest conflict in Europe since WWII.

Losses after three years

By December 2024, official numbers reached 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and 370,000 wounded. That compares with 600,000 dead and wounded for Russia, according to Zelenskyy. 

Compared to the Israel-Hamas war, as of February 2025, the number of killed and wounded people in the entire Middle East has reached 166,000.

6.168 million Ukrainian refugees were registered across Europe by the end of July 2024, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 

The Russia-Ukraine war has caused the largest population-displacement crisis since World War II. A third of the Ukrainian population has been forced to flee their homes.

Another 571,000 Ukrainians are exiled outside of Europe, bringing the global total of those exiled to 6.74 million people. Additionally, 3.7 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine’s borders, according to the UN. 

According to additional statistics, over 2.5 million homes have been destroyed during the war in Ukraine, which has caused additional waves of internal displacement and citizens fleeing the country. 

Despite massive losses, economic crises in both countries, and prolonged peace negotiations, the war continues.

Ukraine vs. Russia

A few main economic factors can describe a country’s financial or political power. Let’s look at a few of them from Feb. 24, 2022. The population of Russia is three times bigger, the area almost 30 times, and the GDP per capita 2.4 times.

Since the start of the invasion, the Ukrainian military has become among the 20 largest militaries. Ukraine spends a larger share of its GDP on their military than any other country. The Russian military is inarguably the world’s third-largest military, the first-largest in terms of nuclear weapon capabilities.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine can be compared to the U.S. invading Mexico — a huge, powerful country invading a, geographically and militarily, much smaller state under the guise of making it “a better place” due to supposed “issues in the Mexican government.”

So, why did Russia, struggling with its own political freedom and social prosperity, decide to “help” Ukraine?

“Justifications” from the Kremlin, and how the invasion started

In a speech to the citizens of Russia on Feb. 23, 2022, Putin announced that he had made a decision to start a special military operation in Ukraine. His goals were: 

1. “Protecting people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.”

Data from the office of the Commissioner of Human Rights of the occupied Donetsk region in Ukraine presents a contradiction. Since the invasion by Russian forces in 2014, the border of the occupied Donetsk region has remained a war zone with many casualties. 

The death of 4,500 people in eight years cannot be labeled a “genocide.” To compare, the average death from car accidents in the occupied Donetsk region is 90–100 people in a year. 

Putin also spoke about the abuse of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. The author of this article was born in the Donetsk region and lived in Kharkiv, speaking purely Russian. I haven’t seen or experienced any abuse due to language in my 17 years of living in Ukraine.

2. “And for this, we will strive for demilitarization and denazification.”

Contradiction: This “goal” is pointing to the “denazification” of Ukraine, which was pointed out when the Russian government argued that the Ukrainian government consists of Nazis. For reference, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish. 

3. “At the same time, our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything or anyone by force.”

This is clearly false; millions have fled the occupied region because they didn’t want to live under the Russian government.

4. “Neither when the USSR was created, nor after the Second World War, no one ever asked people living in certain territories that are part of modern Ukraine how they themselves wanted to arrange their lives.”

Contradiction: After the collapse of the USSR, the independent nation of Ukraine organized fair and transparent presidential and parliamentary elections, featuring a rigorous debate about the future direction of the country.

5. “Today’s events are not connected with the desire to infringe on the interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. They are connected with the protection of Russia itself from those who took Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and its people.”

A powerful country with one of the world’s largest militaries is trying to protect itself from a significantly smaller country, even though Russia invaded and occupied regions of Ukraine in 2014?

Russia’s military campaign has gone beyond targeting military objects. Their attacks have targeted civilian homes, punishing Ukrainians for simply wanting to live in Ukraine. One of the major examples of inhumane violence was captured after Bucha was freed from Russian occupation, where mass amounts of dead, mutilated bodies were found on the streets. 

Budapest Memorandum

In December 1994, Ukraine, Russia, and the United States signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, which is eerily similar to the proposed “mineral deal” by the Trump Administration. 

Under the agreement, Ukraine — which had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia and the U.S. — agreed to give up all of their nuclear weapons to Russia. In return, the Russian Federation provided security assurances to Ukraine, promising to neither attack nor threaten them. 

The United States pledged support to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine’s adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Just 20 years later, Russia invaded Ukraine without any significant consequences or penalties from the U.S. and other signatories. 

There were more points made by other Russian government officials, with different but equally absurd “reasons” for starting a massive war, killing thousands of innocent people and taking their homes. 

What could have been done?

To prevent the madness of the Russian Federation, other globally powerful countries could assist in negotiations or provide support to Ukraine to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, preventing further casualties, economic costs, and diplomatic deterioration with Russia. 

Nevertheless, the war is ongoing, so we can discuss what could have been done. Here are just a few examples: 

1. On Feb. 19, former U.S. President Joe Biden gave a speech, announcing that “Russia will invade Ukraine.” Ukraine had not been given enough defense in advance of this operation so that they could prevent a full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation.

2. Giving more weapons to Ukraine at the beginning of the war and expediting sanctions against Russia. 

3. Despite relatively significant help from the U.S., Ukraine wasn’t allowed to attack Russian territory until May 2024, two and a half years after the invasion. It was permitted in May, but only for defending Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, located 18 miles from the Russian border. So, in two and a half years, Ukrainian civilians were less defended, due to the ban from the U.S.

To illustrate, it takes missiles fired from the Russian city of Belgorod 30 seconds to reach their targets in Kharkiv, which is only 30 kilometers (18 miles) away, roughly the same amount of time that air defense systems need to respond. By that time, the lives of dozens of people and the homes of hundreds could be destroyed. 

4. And, of course, more aid. To understand the actual situation regarding all aid to Ukraine and the countries that contribute the most in terms of their ability, let’s look at the graphs.

The graph provided, sourced from the Kiel Institute, is of the countries that gave the most aid to Ukraine, in the percentage of GDP, in descending order.

According to Time magazine, “90% of Ukraine aid spending stays in the U.S., creating thousands of jobs.”

Giving military aid to Ukraine is not a straightforward process; the U.S. is creating and investing in new technology for their military and giving old weapons to Ukraine, with contracts of returning money as a long-loan. 

So it is a mutually beneficial strategy: Ukraine obtains more weapons to defend itself, and the U.S. strengthens its military power. 

At the same time, U.S. help is not that big in comparison to other countries in terms of help to Ukraine. The European Union, which has a GDP per capita of 43.35 thousand dollars (the U.S. sits at 86.6) has given a total of 138.55 billion dollars in aid. Meanwhile, the U.S. gave 119.60 billion dollars in aid. Even with an economy twice as powerful as the EU, the U.S. has still given less.

Statistics in the above graph are sourced from the International Monetary Fund and Kiel Institute.

From the agreements with Russia in 1994, the start of the war in 2014, to the full-scale invasion in 2022, to the insecurity of more than 40 million Ukrainians, to the biggest conflict in Europe since WWII, to the world’s reaction to the ongoing bloody war, Ukrainians are constantly fighting for a right to live independently. 

Since the invasion in 2014, Russia has occupied three regions of Ukraine: Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk Oblast. 

Since then, the conflict has dramatically decreased and left the territories of independent Ukraine under the control of Russia. 

In 2022, Russia invaded again. 

If history repeats itself and the world abandons Ukraine once more, that will grant validation to the current territories rooting for Russian influence on occupied regions. It would cause a repeat of the full-scale invasion in 10 years, which will result in many more deaths and even more military spending globally. 

Not returning Ukraine’s territories to the borders of 1991 will set a precedent that so long as you are a powerful country with nuclear weapons, no one will care about peace and justice.

What can be done now?

War is ongoing, and to support innocent civilians and those in occupied regions, everyone can help. Yes, you can help, too! 

Since war is a multidimensional battle touching many domains — such as the military, the medical field, humanitarian resources, rescues from occupied regions, the rebuilding of homes in unoccupied regions, or responses after a missile attack — all domains have different needs. 

Peace for Ukraine.

Due to the colossal size of the battle, all processes cannot be controlled by only one fund or organization. So you can choose which direction to help and donate to whichever of these you prefer:

• Ambulance fundraiser (official government organization in Ukraine): https://u24.gov.ua/uber
• Civil air defense: https://savelife.in.ua/second-frontier-ppo/
• Tactical medicine: https://prytulafoundation.org/en/help-army/direction/taktichna-mediczina
• Free healthcare to Ukrainians in the de-occupied and frontline areas: https://prytulafoundation.org/en/humanitarian-help/direction/medical-aid
• Reconstruction and equipping shelters for children’s education: https://prytulafoundation.org/en/humanitarian-help/direction/safe-and-smart
• Ukrainian Army: https://prytulafoundation.org/en/help-army

Further directions on how you can help can be found on:

• Official government organization in Ukraine: https://u24.gov.ua/
• Come Back Alive, Ukraine’s largest charitable organization:https://savelife.in.ua/
• Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation: https://prytulafoundation.org/en/

All graphs, excluding the ones from the BBC and Kiel Institute, were created by the author using sources linked in the article.