The War in Ukraine Has Now Gone On Longer Than World War I
Parallels between the two wars abound, from the grinding nature of the fighting to the way new technologies reshaped warfare. By Constant Méheut Constant Méheut, who has covered the war in Ukraine since 2023, previously reported for The Times from France The New York Times , June 11, 2026 Updated 9:46 a.m. ET The war in Ukraine has often been compared to World War I for its brutal infantry assaults and heavy casualties. Yet the idea that it could, by any measure, surpass a conflict so long and bloody that French soldiers hoped it would be “the last of the last” once seemed unthinkable. That is just what happened on Thursday. The war in Ukraine — which reached 1,569 days, or more than four years and three months — has now outlasted World War I. When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sent his troops into Ukraine in February 2022, he believed the country would fall within days. After Ukraine pushed the Russians back and the conflict settled into a war of attrition, even many of those...