The war in Ukraine has equaled the duration of World War I yesterday, BFM TV noted in an analytical article, BTA reported.
The conflict has been going on for 1,567 days, the French media outlet said. It commented that the ability to quickly adapt and the resilience of Ukrainian society, supported by Europe, have allowed the Ukrainian army to resist Russian forces for over four years.
According to the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, about 325,000 Russian soldiers have died in the conflict, and the total number of Russian military personnel killed, wounded and missing has reached 1.2 million. For comparison, this is approximately five times more than the losses that the United States suffered in the Vietnam War or the Korean War. No major power has suffered a similar level of losses since World War II, the think tank notes, commenting that this is an “extremely high price for minimal territorial gains“. In four years, the Russian army has captured only 1.25% of the territory of Ukraine. Progress is becoming slower, despite the intensification of Russian attacks. This suggests that Russian forces are stumbling on a front line that is figuratively overflowing with reconnaissance and strike drones, the think tank points out, quoted by BFMTV.
Russia has not officially reported the number of soldiers killed, wounded or missing in the war. Neither has Ukraine, the media outlet recalls.
The emergence of drones is one of the most important features of this conflict, BFMTV adds. They are mass-produced and cheap, equipped with artificial intelligence and make the front line practically completely transparent. In other words, no one is safe anymore. These drones make it almost impossible to evacuate the wounded by helicopters, which have become too vulnerable targets. Hence the paradoxical conclusion - technological progress leads to historical regression. In Ukraine, the chances of survival after injury are decreasing, and the ratio of wounded to dead is reaching levels close to those of World War I. This observation was made by historian Stéphane Audouin-Rousseau, director of research at the French Higher School of Social Sciences and one of the best French specialists in the analysis of military conflicts, in particular the First World War. The expert recalls: “In Vietnam, helicopters transported the wounded to the operating table in less than an hour, sometimes even in less than 20 minutes. Today, because of drones, helicopters can no longer fly. We are once again seeing a level of casualties close to that of World War I. This is an extremely astonishing historical regression in wartime“.
In addition to drones, algorithms are also now at the center of the battlefield, notes BFMTV. The military uses algorithms to process satellite data to precisely detect enemy positions. Artificial intelligence automatically corrects the trajectories of drones and offers operational solutions to military analysts in almost real time. If, for example, in 2011, during the operation in Libya, determining a target took about 48 hours, today in Ukraine this can be done in about 10 minutes. If in 2003, over 2,000 analysts were engaged in identifying targets during the US invasion of Iraq, today about 20 military personnel, using artificial intelligence from the American software company “Palantir“, specializing in data analysis, can perform the same task. The former chief of the Russian General Staff Yuri Baluevsky noted in November last year that “the campaign in Ukraine has put an end to almost a century of war waged with mechanized equipment, characteristic of industrial societies“. According to him, the army with the greatest computing power will have an advantage in future conflicts.
The general staffs of the armed forces of Western countries consider a Russian attack on a NATO country before 2030 to be possible, BFMTV also recalls in the analysis. In 2024, the head of German foreign intelligence, Bruno Kahl, warned: “Moscow is not only seeking to restore its pre-war level, but also to further increase its conventional military capabilities. By the end of the decade, Russia will probably have the necessary human and material resources to attack NATO.”
Poland, which borders both Ukraine and Russia, is on high alert. According to Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kościńska-Kamiś, “We are living in the most dangerous times since World War II.”
Poland has launched a program called “Always Ready,” which aims to prepare the population to resist a possible invasion. The program includes military training, first aid classes, and survival courses aimed at students, workers, and retirees. The plan calls for training 400,000 people by the end of the year.
At the beginning of this year, polls in France showed that only 47% of French people approved of arms supplies to Ukraine. This is a drop of 18 percentage points in four years, BFMTV notes. When asked whether they would pay higher taxes to raise funds to support Kiev, 87% of French people opposed such an idea. When it comes to direct military intervention in the conflict, public opinion is also reserved. Only a third of French people support sending European troops to Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has exposed a historic divide between Europe and the United States. According to a survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations, only 10 percent of Europeans now consider the United States a reliable ally, and every second European sees US President Donald Trump as an adversary of Europe.
In its “National Defense Strategy“, published in December last year, the Pentagon predicted a “civilizational weakening“ of Europe. In February 2025, European leaders listened with bewilderment to the speech of US Vice President J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference, in which he stated that the greatest threat to Europe was not Russia, but "Europe's abandonment of some of its most fundamental values", such as freedom of speech and religious freedom, recalls BFMTV.
The war in Ukraine also accelerated the US strategic reorientation towards Asia - a process that began under US President Barack Obama. Donald Trump's main priority is now not Europe, but the Indo-Pacific region. The conflict in Ukraine gave him the opportunity to call on Europeans to reduce their dependence on American defense and invest more in their own defense. This strategic withdrawal of the United States changes the geopolitical balance and forces European countries to take a position on key issues, including the possible expansion of the French nuclear umbrella from the protection of France to protection at the European level, the French media concludes.
The Republic of Bulgaria consistently supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, as well as the European and Euro-Atlantic perspective of Ukraine. Bulgaria is part of the efforts of the EU, NATO and the international democratic community in support of Ukraine. A priority of Bulgarian foreign policy is ensuring the rights of persons belonging to the Bulgarian national minority, which is an important bridge of friendship and cooperation between the two countries.