A conflict without formal DoWs issued is not a proper war,
If it helps clarify things for you: most wars are deeply psychological in nature; and part of how they operate is by telling people (both the perpetrators and victims) that it's not really a "war". But rather a "special operation". They will even lie right to your face, and tell you that they are there to "demilitarize" the area and to bring peace. And that to the extent that it might look like a war -- that will insist that they had no choice; it was forced on them; the other side could stop it at any time if they wanted to.
Proper declarations do have significance of course; but they are always secondary to the basic facts of what's happening on the ground.
In case it wasn't obvious, no I don't buy Russia's "mUh SpEcIaL oPeRaTiOn!" bullshit. It's not a war either, for already stated reasons.
No, what's going on in Ukraine is even worse; it's unadulterated, uncivilized baboonery that should be an embarassment to all of humanity. Russia for doing it, and the rest of us all for failing to stop it (and so far putting an end to it).
It's the 21st motherfucking century and we can't even try to be civilized about brutally murdering each other en masse. Fucking hell, man.
But I see the overall point you're making, and I've also taken the "Can we even call it a war?" perspective at times, not because of the lack of a proper declaration (which I see as insignificant), but from the sheer pointless, murderous insanity of it all.
A side note: It just so happens that the romanized version of the Russian acronym for SMO is SVO (that is, SVO = СВО and perhaps F meant "full"?) so I was temporarily confused by what you meant with that acronym. I now do see what you meant by it. But at the moment my mind was focused on the pointless insanity that we both agree is the situation in Ukraine, not math.
If it helps clarify things for you: most wars are deeply psychological in nature; and part of how they operate is by telling people (both the perpetrators and victims) that it's not really a "war". But rather a "special operation". They will even lie right to your face, and tell you that they are there to "demilitarize" the area and to bring peace. And that to the extent that it might look like a war -- that will insist that they had no choice; it was forced on them; the other side could stop it at any time if they wanted to.
Proper declarations do have significance of course; but they are always secondary to the basic facts of what's happening on the ground.