What the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine revealed: neither side can win the war, and neither side can end it

On the surface, the fourth year of Russia’s war in Ukraine offered little new: the same slow advances through the Donbas, the same failed diplomacy, the same lack of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. But 2025 was a year of real, if quiet, transformation — in the technology of killing, in the logic of negotiation, and in both sides’ understanding of what winning actually looks like. Meduza examines what changed, what didn’t, and what the fifth year of the war is likely to bring. The short answer: ...