Irish Examiner view: 150 days of war — and there may be thousands more

Ukrainian conflict could still have a long way to go

TOPSHOT - Firefighters extinguish a fire on a local market damaged following a shelling in the town of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, on July 21, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Igor TKACHEV / AFP) (Photo by IGOR TKACHEV/AFP via Getty Images)

After 150 days, the First World War stood on the eve of the famous Christmas truce of 1914: Footballs in no man’s land; ‘Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht’ drifting across the barbed wire; small fir trees planted on the tops of the trenches. That war lasted 1,565 days, ending in November 1918.

The 150th day of the Second World War fell on January 30, 1940. In Europe, and it is important to remember this, Soviet Russia, which signed a 10-year non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, had invaded Finland and was bombing Helsinki.