Valdai Club

On October 18 at 16:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will present its new report titled “Warfare in a New Epoch: The Return of Big Armies.”

The conflict in Ukraine has become the largest one in terms of casualties, the number of troops involved and duration since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–1988. However, the difference is that the fighting in Ukraine is the result of contradictions between the world’s largest nuclear powers: Russia and the United States. The mere presence of nuclear weapons in their respective arsenals sets up a different framework for the war.

The authors of the report cite the Korean War as the closest historical precedent. The tactics of warfare and the military equipment used were different, but from a political standpoint, the conflict in Korea is similar to the one in Ukraine. As in Korea, the struggle in Ukraine began during a period of restructuring in the system of international relations, and is being fought for the right to influence the future world order.