Irish Examiner view: Preserving light of democracy after Ukraine's 100 days

Russians will only be stopped by will and determination and, at the moment, they have it, and our comfortable and collegiate alliance of nations does not

Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry employees search the site of a bombing in the school where a graduation ceremony, called the Last School Bell, was supposed to take place in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Thursday. Picture: AP Photo/Andrii Marienko

Few international conflicts start and finish in 100 days, although there are several whose crucial phases are settled within such timescales. The final defeat at Waterloo of Napoleon, after his return from Elba, took 115 days in 1815. The end of the First World War was marked by a relentless surge of victories after four years of bloody stalemate, commencing with the Battle of Amiens in August 1918 and ending with the armistice that November.

The campaign in Ukraine is not going to be like that. Today marks its 100th day. “What happens if it becomes a ‘forever’ war”? asked an article by Princeton history professor Harold James in the Irish Examiner this week. It is a pertinent question.