A Deeper Dive

Beyond this week’s

Fair Game

podcast with Dr. Gary Kellner

Does Anybody Remember Ukraine?

History’s Warning in Europe’s Longest War

“History has a long memory. The news does not.”

Four years ago, Ukraine dominated every headline. We watched apartment buildings burn, families shelter in subway stations, and long columns of Russian armor push toward Kyiv. Then, as often happens, another crisis arrived. Wars in the Middle East, inflation, elections, artificial intelligence, and domestic politics slowly pushed Ukraine off the front page.

But history has a way of punishing short attention spans.

As Dr. Gary Kellner asks in this week’s Fair Game, “Does anybody remember Ukraine?” It is a deceptively simple question. Because what is happening in Ukraine is about far more than one nation defending its borders. It is about whether history still teaches us anything at all.

The podcast explores the broad historical landscape.

This deeper dive asks a different question:

What would surprise even someone who has followed the war since the beginning?

Let’s begin there.

DEEP DIVE #1

I Never Knew That… Ukraine Once Possessed the World’s Third-Largest Nuclear Arsenal

Most Americans assume Ukraine has always depended upon others for its defense.

The truth is astonishing.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Ukraine unexpectedly inherited approximately 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads and thousands of tactical nuclear weapons. Overnight, the newly independent nation possessed the third-largest nuclear arsenal on Earth, behind only the United States and Russia.

Think about that.

Not Britain.

Not France.

Not China.

Ukraine.

Its leaders suddenly faced one of the most extraordinary decisions in modern history.

Should they remain a nuclear power—or trust the international community?

In December 1994, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed the Budapest Memorandum with Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Ukraine agreed to surrender every nuclear weapon on its territory. In return, the signatories pledged to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and internationally recognized borders.

At the time, newspapers celebrated the agreement as a triumph for world peace.

The Memorandum was not a treaty. The United States Senate did not advise and consent to its terms. In point of fact, the Budapest Memorandum meant nothing. No one let Ukraine in on the dirty little secret.

Thirty years later, historians describe it very differently.

Military academies, diplomats, and national security experts continue to ask one uncomfortable question:

Would Russia have invaded in 2014—or again in 2022—if Ukraine had remained a nuclear power?

No one can answer.

But every nation watching today’s conflict—from Poland to Taiwan—has learned the value of Bill Cliton’s signature.

History’s greatest surprises are often hidden inside yesterday’s agreements.

DEEP DIVE #2

I Never Knew That… Ukraine’s Soil Helped Shape World History

Ukraine has long been called the “breadbasket of Europe.”

That isn’t poetic language.

It’s agricultural fact.

Ukraine sits atop one of the world’s richest deposits of chernozem, or “black earth.” In many places this fertile soil extends more than thirty feet deep and contains extraordinary concentrations of organic material.

For centuries, empires coveted it.

Catherine the Great understood its value.

Adolf Hitler understood its value.

Joseph Stalin certainly understood its value.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 wasn’t driven solely by military ambition. Hitler believed controlling Ukraine’s farmland would help feed the Third Reich for generations.

He wasn’t the first conqueror to think that way.

Nor the last.

Fast forward to 2022.

When Russian warships disrupted grain exports through the Black Sea, something remarkable happened.

The consequences reached far beyond Europe.

Bread prices climbed in Egypt.

Governments in Lebanon worried about food shortages.

Humanitarian agencies rushed emergency shipments into parts of East Africa.

One battle near the port of Odesa rippled across three continents.

All because Ukraine normally supplies enormous quantities of wheat, corn, barley, and sunflower oil to the global market.

A missile launched in the Black Sea can eventually affect the cost of a loaf of bread thousands of miles away.

Geography matters.

Perhaps more than ever.

DEEP DIVE #3

I Never Knew That… This War Is Rewriting Military History

Picture two military commanders.

One commands an armored vehicle costing several million dollars.

The other launches a drone assembled from commercially available parts that costs less than a family vacation.

The tank loses. Well, in this case, thousands of Russian tanks have lost.

That scene has played out repeatedly across Ukraine.

Military historians increasingly believe this conflict marks the beginning of a new era of warfare.

Previous generations studied Normandy.

Gettysburg.

The Gulf War.

Tomorrow’s officers may study Ukraine for entirely different reasons.

The battlefield is changing before our eyes.

Small first-person-view drones now hunt tanks, artillery, supply convoys, bridges—even individual soldiers—with astonishing precision.

Artificial intelligence helps identify targets.

Commercial satellite networks keep military units connected after communications towers are destroyed.

Software updates can improve battlefield performance almost overnight.

In 2023, military schools including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and allied defense institutions began closely analyzing battlefield footage from Ukraine, not because the war resembled previous conflicts, but precisely because it does not.

Long-held assumptions about armor, air superiority, and battlefield tactics are being rewritten.

Imagine explaining to a World War II general that one of the most effective weapons in a future European war would fit inside a backpack and could be purchased with a credit card.

He would never believe you.

Yet here we are.

Warfare has entered the digital age.

And every military planner in the world is paying attention.

The most fascinating part of Ukraine’s story is not that it has survived.

It is that nearly every assumption experts held before February 24, 2022 has been challenged.

Lands wars are no longer fought only by artillery, tanks, and infantry.

Food has become a strategic weapon.

History is revealing itself one surprise at a time.

And we’re only getting started.

‍

DEEP DIVE #4

I Never Knew That… Vladimir Putin’s Biggest Strategic Mistake May Have Been Expanding NATO

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, one of Vladimir Putin’s stated goals was to stop NATO from moving closer to Russia’s borders.

History can be wonderfully ironic.

The invasion produced almost exactly the opposite result.

For decades, Finland and Sweden had chosen military nonalignment. Both were prosperous democracies with capable militaries, but each believed remaining outside NATO reduced tensions with Moscow. Finland, in particular, had lived next to Russia for generations under a delicate balance known as “Finlandization”—remaining independent while carefully avoiding direct confrontation with its powerful neighbor.

Then came Ukraine.

The invasion forced both countries to ask a simple question:

“If this can happen to Ukraine, why couldn’t it happen to us?”

The answer changed history.

On April 4, 2023, Finland officially became NATO’s 31st member. Sweden followed on March 7, 2024.

Here’s the remarkable part.

Finland shares approximately 830 miles of border with Russia.

With two signatures, Russia more than doubled the frontier it must defend in a conflict with NATO, Nice going Vladimir!

Military historians love irony.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor hoping to weaken America.

Instead, as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the attack presciently observed,  Japan had awakened the sleeping giant.

Nikita Khrushchev built the Berline Wall in 1961 to keep East Germans from leaving. Instead, it became the defining symbol of communist failure.

Putin hoped to shrink NATO’s influence.

History may remember him as the leader who enlarged it.

DEEP DIVE #5

I Never Knew That… Wars Are Usually Won by Mechanics Before They’re Won by Generals

Military officers have an old saying:

“Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics.”

It sounds almost boring.

Until soldiers run out of fuel.

A tank without diesel is a forty-ton paperweight.

A fighter aircraft without replacement parts never leaves the runway.

An army without ammunition eventually stops advancing—not because it lacks courage, but because mathematics always wins.

Napoleon learned this lesson during the invasion of Russia in 1812.

He crossed the border with more than 600,000 soldiers, the largest army Europe had ever seen.

Only a fraction of them returned.

Not because the Russians won a decisive battle.

Because supply lines stretched beyond reason. Horses died. Food disappeared. Winter arrived. Distance and General Snow defeated one of history’s greatest military commanders.

More than a century later, Operation Barbarossa repeated the lesson.

In 1941, Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union with astonishing speed. German forces reached the outskirts of Moscow, but fuel shortages, overstretched supply lines, brutal weather, and mechanical failures slowed the advance until momentum disappeared.

History repeated itself.

Military analysts studying Ukraine have pointed repeatedly to logistics—maintenance, transportation, corruption, supply chains, manufacturing capacity—as central factors in the conflict.

Battles make headlines.

Logistics decide wars.

DEEP DIVE #6

I Never Knew That… Stalin Tried to Break Ukraine Long Before Putin Did

For many people, Ukraine’s struggle began in 2022.

For Ukrainians, it began generations earlier.

Between 1932 and 1933, Joseph Stalin launched agricultural policies that produced one of the twentieth century’s greatest human tragedies.

The Soviet government confiscated grain.

Villages were sealed.

Travel was restricted.

Families caught gathering leftover grain from harvested fields faced severe punishment.

The famine that followed became known as the Holodomor, meaning “death by hunger.”

Perhaps as many as five million Ukrainians died.

Today, more than thirty countries recognize the Holodomor as genocide.

Whether every historian agrees on the legal terminology matters less than understanding what it means to Ukrainians.

Imagine growing up hearing your grandmother describe neighbors starving while trains carrying grain rolled past guarded by soldiers.

Those stories become family history.

Family history becomes national identity.

National identity shapes national resilience.

When President Volodymyr Zelenskyy chose to remain in Kyiv rather than flee in February 2022, many observers saw a courageous political decision.

Many Ukrainians saw something deeper.

They saw another generation refusing to surrender its future to Moscow.

History wasn’t repeating itself exactly.

But it was certainly echoing.

DEEP DIVE #7

I Never Knew That… One Private Company Quietly Changed Modern Warfare

Suppose someone asked you to name the most important technologies in today’s battlefield.

You might say tanks.

Missiles.

Aircraft.

Artillery.

Yet one of the most significant military advantages in Ukraine came from something almost unimaginable a generation ago:

Commercial satellite internet.

When communications infrastructure was damaged early in the war, satellite terminals helped restore connectivity across large parts of Ukraine. Military units coordinated operations. Emergency responders stayed in contact. Hospitals transmitted information. Government agencies continued functioning.

For centuries, military advantage belonged almost exclusively to governments.

Today, private companies influence the battlefield in ways once reserved for superpowers.

Think about that for a moment.

In 1944, victory depended on shipyards, steel mills, and aircraft factories.

In 2024, software engineers, satellite networks, cybersecurity specialists, drone designers, and artificial intelligence developers became indispensable participants in modern conflict.

The Arsenal of Democracy has changed.

It no longer consists only of factories.

It includes laboratories.

Computer servers.

Innovation hubs.

And 20-Somethings writing code.

Future historians may conclude that Ukraine was the first major war fought as much with algorithms as artillery.

If the first half of this conflict challenged our assumptions about geopolitics, the second half has challenged our assumptions about technology, economics, and even the nature of military power itself.

The final chapters of this story are still being written.

But history is already taking notes.

DEEP DIVE #8

I Never Knew That… The Black Sea May Be More Important Than the Battlefield

Look at a globe.

The Black Sea doesn’t appear especially large. Yet for more than two thousand years, empires have fought over it because it controls access between Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean.

The ancient Greeks established trading colonies there.

The Byzantine Empire depended upon it.

The Ottoman Empire and Imperial Russia fought repeated wars to control it.

Then came the Crimean War (1853–1856), when Britain and France entered the conflict largely to prevent Russia from dominating this strategic crossroads.

History has a long memory.

That same geography still shapes today’s headlines.

When Russia seized Crimea in 2014, it wasn’t simply acquiring a peninsula. It secured the home of its Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol and strengthened its ability to influence shipping, energy routes, and military access throughout the region.

Once again, geography refused to become obsolete.

Technology changes.

Maps rarely do.

DEEP DIVE #9

I Never Knew That… The Most Powerful Weapon in Any War May Be National Identity

Dr. Gary Kellner makes an observation that deserves careful attention.

Perhaps Ukraine’s greatest achievement is not measured in territory regained.

Perhaps it is measured in survival.

History offers remarkable parallels.

The American colonists in 1776 were badly outmatched by the world’s greatest empire.

Finland, during the Winter War of 1939–40, fought the vastly larger Soviet Union to a standstill and shocked the world with its resistance.

England stood alone during the Battle of Britain in 1940, when many believed Nazi Germany was unstoppable.

In each case, military strength mattered.

But something less measurable mattered too.

People fighting for a homeland often possess a resilience that cannot be counted in tanks or aircraft.

That does not guarantee victory.

History offers no guarantees.

But it does explain why predictions based solely on military size are so often wrong.

When analysts predicted Kyiv would fall within days in February 2022, they measured divisions, artillery, and aircraft.

They could not measure determination.

That is one of history’s oldest blind spots.

Military power can occupy a nation. It cannot easily extinguish a nation’s identity.

DEEP DIVE #10

I Never Knew That… History’s Biggest Surprise May Still Be Ahead

One of the most dangerous habits in public life is assuming we know how history will end.

We rarely do.

In 1985, few experts predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse within a decade.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” Many commentators dismissed the speech as unrealistic.

In 1989, the CIA released a report which stated that serious change in the Soviet system could not be expected for fifty years. Six months later, the Berlin Wall fell.

History has a way of humbling certainty.

That is why Dr. Gary Kellner’s opening question matters.

Does anybody remember Ukraine?

History certainly will.

Not simply because one nation resisted a larger neighbor.

Not only because drones changed modern warfare.

Not because grain shipments influenced food prices on three continents.

Not because NATO grew stronger instead of weaker.

Future historians may conclude that Ukraine marked one of those rare moments when several chapters of history turned at once.

Military doctrine changed.

Technology reshaped the battlefield.

Energy policy shifted.

Food security became a strategic weapon.

International alliances evolved.

The assumptions that governed the post-Cold War world were tested in real time.

Whether Ukraine ultimately prevails or not, students fifty years from now will almost certainly study this conflict alongside the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the fall of the Berlin Wall—not because every event was identical, but because each forced democracies to decide what they were willing to defend.

That brings us back to the broader lesson.

Dr. Gary Kellner reminds us that every empire eventually faces its own reckoning.

The Roman Empire seemed permanent.

So did the Ottoman Empire.

So did the British Empire.

So did the Soviet Union.

Each, in its own time, reached limits that power alone could not overcome.

No one knows how or when today’s conflict will end.

But history suggests an enduring truth.

Empires are strongest when they believe themselves invincible.

They become vulnerable when they begin believing their own mythology.

The news cycle asks, “What happened today?”

History asks a different question:

“What changed forever?”

That is why Ukraine still matters.

Not because it occupies today’s headlines.

But because it may one day occupy an entire chapter in the history books our grandchildren will read.

The headlines will fade.

The lessons will not.

Remembering Ukraine is ultimately about remembering something larger than one nation. It is about understanding that history is never as distant as we imagine. It has a remarkable way of returning, asking whether we learned anything the last time.

Reflections

1. Which surprised you most: that Ukraine once possessed the world’s third-largest nuclear

arsenal, that drones are rewriting military doctrine, or that grain exports from one nation can influence food prices around the world?

1. History is filled with examples of smaller nations resisting larger powers. Which historical comparison do you think best helps explain Ukraine’s resilience—and why?
2. Fifty years from now, when historians write about the Ukraine War, what do you think will prove to be its most lasting legacy: military innovation, the reshaping of alliances, the revival of national identity, or something we have not yet recognized? Date: June 28, 2026