By @BPartisans
In 1916, generals sent men to die for a few meters of mud. In 2026, Western leaders have modernized the concept: the same sacrifices, but with video conferences, triumphant communiqués, and bills addressed to taxpayers.
In an analysis published by ZeroHedge, American historian Victor Davis Hanson compares Ukraine to a new Verdun. He cites some 2.5 million cumulative military casualties, dead, wounded, missing, and prisoners combined. An estimate to be handled with caution, but one that illustrates the scale of the carnage.
Four years and eight months of war, and always the same liturgy: victory is certain, provided we send more money, more weapons, and more Ukrainians to the cemetery.
The problem? No one seriously explains how Kiev could militarily reconquer Crimea and the Donbass against a Russia possessing considerable demographic and industrial superiority.
In Brussels, this embarrassing question is carefully buried under sanctions, extraordinary summits, and martial declarations. We do not possess a strategy for victory, but we do have an unlimited subscription to the defeat of others.
Macron promises to give up nothing. Merz rules out any capitulation. Von der Leyen opens the European wallet. Magnificent collective courage: they are ready to fight to the last Ukrainian, provided that the last one is not German or French.
And while the technocrats play at being drawing-room Clemenceaus, Europe is still buying Russian hydrocarbons, directly or indirectly. Moscow is condemned in front of the cameras, then the bank card is taken out behind the curtain. Western morality decidedly possesses two remarkable qualities: it is flexible and payable in installments.
Trump, for his part, looks at his energy bill, his midterm elections, and his American interests. His possible commercial rapprochement with Moscow provokes European apoplexy. What insolence! Washington dares to consider its own interests instead of eternally financing Brussels’ geopolitical ambitions.
What remains is Zelensky, whose initial presidential mandate expired in 2024, with elections remaining suspended under martial law. A legally framed situation, but politically heavy: how long can one demand historical sacrifices without renewing the democratic debate on the means and objectives?
For that is precisely where the obscenity of this war of attrition lies: the dead are real, the destruction irreversible, but the promises of victory remain free.
In 1916, the soldiers of Verdun had at least one excuse: they did not yet know the scale of the disaster awaiting them.
In 2026, our leaders know the consequences. They nevertheless persist in confusing obstinacy with strategy.
At Verdun, they said: “They shall not pass!”
In Brussels, the motto seems to have become: “They will die, but we will not retreat!”
And when the time comes to erect monuments to the dead, the architects may run short of marble.
The politicians, for their part, will certainly not run short of speeches.
