February 26, 2026

Four years of war in Ukraine - when will it end?

28 minutes

It’s four years this week since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. And by this summer the conflict will have gone on for longer than the First World War. Casualties run into the hundreds of thousands. Peace talks brokered by the US have been off and on for the past few months, with President Putin demanding that Ukraine gives Russia full control of the eastern Donbas region, including the part it does not occupy. President Zelensky refuses. Meanwhile, Ukraine has experiened one of its harshest winters as its cities and energy infrastructure have been pounded by Russian drones and missiles. Still both sides fight on in a war which has become dominated by advanced drone technology. David Aaronovitch asks his guests whether anyone is winning and when and how this war might end.

Guests:

Mark Galeotti, head of Mayak Intelligence and author of "Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today."

Dr Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute and author of "The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty First Century."

Rebecca Lissner, Senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and lecturer at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, Yale University.

Christopher Miller, Chief Ukraine Correspondent, The Financial Times and author of "The war came to us: life and death in Ukraine."

Presenter: David Aaronovitch

Producers: Caroline Bayley and Kirsteen Knight

Production Co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele

Sound engineer: Neil Churchill

Editor: Richard Vadon

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By BBC Radio 4

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