World Blog by humble servant.The historical event you're referring to is Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Here's the clear parallel you're drawing with the current situation in the Russia-Ukraine war (as of late 2025)

The historical event you're referring to is Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Here's the clear parallel you're drawing with the current situation in the Russia-Ukraine war (as of late 2025):

Napoleon’s 1812 campaign

Napoleon invaded Russia with the largest army Europe had ever seen (~600,000 men).

He pushed deep into Russia, won some battles (notably Smolensk and Borodino), but never achieved a decisive knockout.

Moscow was captured, but the Russians burned it and refused to surrender.

Winter arrived, supply lines collapsed, Russian scorched-earth tactics and guerrilla attacks bled the Grande Armée dry.

Napoleon eventually realized the campaign was lost. In October 1812 he began the retreat.

Crucially, Napoleon abandoned his army in early December 1812 (near Smorgon, modern-day Belarus), rushed back to Paris in a sled to save his political power, and left his freezing, starving, disease-ridden troops to fend for themselves.

Only ~50,000–100,000 men (out of 600,000+) made it out alive. The retreat became the symbol of total catastrophe.

The modern parallel you’re making (2022–2025 Russia-Ukraine war)

Western leaders (and media) hyped Ukraine’s 2022–2023 counteroffensives as potentially decisive, even “existential” for Russia.

Massive military aid, training, and intelligence were poured in—creating a kind of “proxy Grande Armée” equipped and directed by NATO.

Initial successes (Kharkiv, Kherson 2022) were celebrated like early French victories.

But just as in 1812, the deeper the fight went, the more Russia adopted scorched-earth tactics (destroying its own infrastructure in occupied zones, endless mobilization, fortress cities, minefields, attrition warfare).

By 2024–2025 the front solidified; Ukrainian manpower and equipment losses became unsustainable.

Western politicians and commentators who once promised victory now quietly downgrade expectations (“frozen conflict,” “Korea-style armistice,” “Ukraine already won by surviving,” etc.).

Military aid is still sent, but the rhetoric of total victory has largely vanished from mainstream Western discourse.

The core similarity you’re pointing to: just as Napoleon physically fled the disaster he created and left his soldiers to die in the snow, today’s political architects of the proxy war (in Washington, Brussels, London, etc.) are politically and rhetorically abandoning the Ukrainian army to a slow defeat while pretending collapse isn’t happening—shifting language, reducing escalation, and preparing their own publics for an outcome that will leave hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers (and civilians) as the ones who paid the real price.

In short:

1812 → Napoleon marches triumphantly in, realizes the catastrophe, flees to Paris, army annihilated in the snow.

2025 → West marches Ukraine triumphantly forward with weapons and hype, slowly realizes the war is lost, leaders quietly distance themselves, Ukrainian army left to bleed out on the steppe.