Russia's war with Ukraine has now lasted as long as the Soviet Union's war against Hitler's Germany, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the opposition Russian website Meduza have pointed out.
Soviet dictator Stalin proclaimed the Great Patriotic War after the German invasion in 1941.
The website calculated that the Red Army took 1,418 days to recover from initial setbacks against the Wehrmacht, advance to Berlin and, together with the Allies, force Germany's surrender.
By contrast, after 1,418 days of war in Ukraine, the Russian army has been stuck "for years in the same villages and towns of the Donbass," it said.
Russia invaded its neighbour almost four years ago and expected to capture the capital Kiev within a few days.
The comparison was not mentioned in Russian state media.
Moscow wanted to repeat the success of that time, Zelensky said in his evening video address.
"They repeated the abuse of people, repeated fascism, repeated almost all the worst things that happened in the 20th Century," he said.
"But still, the Russians are trying to seize the same Donbass as almost four years ago. They want to lie once again that they 'took' Kupyansk."
"This speaks volumes about the system (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has built, and about him personally," Zelensky said.
He said Russian losses currently amount to at least 1,000 dead per day. "This is how Russia is essentially paying just to keep the war from ending. This is madness." He added that this "Russian madness" could only be stopped by united efforts.
The comparison of the two wars is not entirely accurate, Meduza added. A direct comparison of many indicators shows that the current war is existential only for Ukraine.
Kiev is managing to continue the war with Western support, while the Kremlin is either unable or unwilling to engage in an existential struggle, and is limiting itself to only marginally stepping up its efforts.
On this 1,418th day of the war, Ukrainian media reported minor Russian territorial gains near Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region and near Pokrovsk in the Donbass. The military-adjacent Ukrainian blog DeepState published corresponding maps on Telegram.
