How the war in Ukraine slowed down the development of physics. The worldʼs leading media about the war on January 17

Before the start of full-scale Russian aggression, some analysts believed that a major war between two developed countries would not resemble the wars of previous years at all. In particular, the role of misinformation campaigns, cyber-attacks, drones and robots will increase significantly, while, for example, infantry or artillery wonʼt be so important. In fact, it turned out that a squad of soldiers is still a reliable tool to occupy and hold territory, and all innovations, although they make adjustments to combat operations, are far from determining the fate of war. In an analytical article, The New York Times tried to understand what a modern long interstate war is like. The key emphasis is precisely on duration and internationality, because in recent decades the world has become accustomed to either civil wars, or to point conflicts, or to the American invasion of countries with significantly less developed armies, when everything developed quickly. The Russo-Ukrainian war is different, and the author of the article, reporter Max Fisher draws the closest parallels with the wars in Korea, the Balkans, and between Israel and the neighboring Arab states. All these conflicts lasted more than one year, and everywhere the determining factor was not the availability of human resources that could be sent to the battlefield. A characteristic feature of these wars is that the emphasis was on the economic exhaustion of the parties. It was for this purpose that South Korean-American troops once bombed the infrastructure of North Korean cities no less actively than Russia is now destroying Ukrainian infrastructure. That is why the side that was able to attract stronger allies won in the Balkans. And that is why already in this war, the West made considerable efforts to limit profits for the Russian economy, and Ukrainians are so actively asking for weapons from these countries. The fate of this war will also be decided on the battlefield, writes Fisher. However, unlike, for example, the First World War, where success was determined by the number of manpower, here everything will be decided by the vitality of the economy and the capacity of weapons production ― both our own and the allies.

"How the Ukraine war ruined physics" ― an article under this title was published by The Guardian. Itʼs about how scientists are currently working at the Large Hadron Collider. Until recently, this project was a symbol of international cooperation, and the participation of dozens of countries at once became a guarantee of its success. Currently, Russian and Belarusian scientists continue to work on collider-related experiments or theoretical developments, but to a large extent this is work "in the drawer". Their texts (even in co-authorship with scientists from other countries) are not published by influential international publications, and their proposals are now rarely funded. In Russia itself, scientific work in these directions has almost come to a standstill due to partially blocked connections, the publication writes. At the same time, most scientists from the aggressor countries understand why everything is happening like this. They are well integrated into the Western world and are aware of all the absurdity and cruelty of the war unleashed by Russia, and they also understand the adequacy of sanctions against their country, particularly in science.