But here’s the thing: no war starts on the day the first missile flies. Think of it like a really awkward house party. The real start was way back in 2014. That’s when Russia annexed Crimea—imagine a guest at a party quietly pocketing your favorite lamp while you’re in the bathroom. And then they started the war in the Donbas, which is like that same guest shoving a few of your cousins into the coat closet and claiming they “belong” there now.
It was a slow burn. You’d see headlines, but it felt distant, like your weird uncle’s Facebook rants about his sprinkler system. Most of us were busy arguing about avocado toast prices and who was really the villain on The Bachelor. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, people were already living with checkpoints, shelling, and a simmering dread that your neighbor might not just be annoying—he might actually want your whole house.
The “Oops, I Dropped The Remote” Moment
Fast forward to early 2026. The whole situation was like watching someone stack Jenga blocks under your coffee table. Western intelligence kept saying, “Any day now, the invasion is coming.” And the world was like, “Yeah, sure, and my aunt is definitely going to return that sweater she borrowed in 1998.” Then Putin gave that weird televised speech on February 21st—it was the political equivalent of your neighbor standing on his lawn, screaming about the “historical injustice” of your mailbox. He recognized the separatist republics, which was basically him saying, “These two cracks in your driveway are now sovereign nations.”
Three days later, on February 24th, the tanks rolled in. It was like the moment you hear a CRACK from the attic, only to find the roof is gone and your neighbor’s kid is playing baseball with your chimney. The war officially “started” that morning for the rest of us because the internet exploded with videos of people hiding in subway stations and air raid sirens. Suddenly, your biggest worry wasn’t if the barista put oat milk in your regular latte; it was, “My God, they’re shelling a kindergarten.”
The Russo-Ukrainian war | The University of Tokyo
