Ukraine ends the third year of war trying to imagine what 2025 will be like. The general wish is that it will be the year of the end of the war, but the terms of a just and lasting peace have yet to be defined. The country nervously scrutinizes the signals coming from the West, especially from the United States, with the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House on January 20. But also from the EU partners, with whom the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, met this Thursday in Brussels. The leader insisted that his entry into NATO would be the security guarantee that kyiv needs against Russia.
In Ukraine there are already a majority of opinions in favor of opening negotiations, according to a Gallup poll published at the end of November. 52% of those surveyed opt for this option compared to 22% in 2022, when the large-scale Russian invasion began. Those urging to continue fighting until victory have fallen to 38%, compared to 73% at the beginning of the conflict. Among the factors that have reversed the results, respondents point out fatigue; the situation on the front, where a Russia with greater resources and more troops is making progress; and the uncertainty of the Trump factor. Zelensky has also been turning around in recent months: the idea of negotiating is already on the agenda, although he is in no rush. As he often repeats, he wants to achieve peace through strength.
Halina Yatsiuk, 38, is part of the Ukrainian population that advocates continuing to fight. He fled Lisichansk (Lugansk) in 2022, settled in Pavlograd, in the Dnipro region, and there he closely suffered a Russian bombing last September. “We all want the war to end now,” he said a few days ago in his apartment, still with a window without glass. But not at any price: “We have lost our homes, many people have died, our lives are in danger and also those of our relatives on the front, and for what?” he asked himself about the possibility of an end to the war. forced.
The co-founder of the International Center for Ukraine Victory, Hanna Hopko, was “cautiously optimistic” this Thursday. The former deputy sees signs that European leaders — who have agreed to accelerate arms deliveries so that Ukraine arrives strong at the negotiations — will not ask for a ceasefire. “They have understood the price and consequences of a bad agreement, especially after Minsk I and II,” he said.
Security guarantees are essential for Ukraine and Hopko is convinced that EU partners understand this. The question remains what guarantees will be acceptable to the parties. French President Emmanuel Macron promotes the idea of a peace mission with European troops, given the refusal of some NATO members to invite Ukraine to the Alliance.
Trump is one of the leaders who reject it. He also wants an immediate cessation of hostilities, as he stated after meeting with the Ukrainian president in Paris on December 8. Keith Kellogg, whom the future Republican president will appoint special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, outlined in April his idea for ending the conflict: freezing the front line and offering guarantees that could include an increase in weapons supplies. Kellogg will travel to kyiv in January, where they await him with hope. Hopko, also president of the Network for the Defense of National Interests (ANTS), sees it as a good sign that he has stated that the visit is to gather data, not to negotiate.
Analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future Igar Tishkevich also does not believe that the negotiations will be as immediate as Trump has stated. “Now they are not possible, because [el presidente ruso, Vladímir] Putin doesn’t want to. The only option he contemplates is for Ukraine to surrender; and Ukraine does not want to start talks yet, it wants to continue fighting to show that it can stop Russia and have more strength,” he explained this Thursday. Tishkevich, who this week presented his predictions for 2025 at an event in kyiv, along with two colleagues, pointed to a possible start of talks in mid-March, after Trump takes office.
Putin rejects a truce
In Monday’s presentation, the institute’s executive director, Vadim Denisenko, also underlined the difficulty of getting Putin to the negotiating table. “We do not need a truce, we need a long-term, lasting peace backed by guarantees for the Russian Federation,” the Russian president said this Thursday. Moscow demands the recognition of the occupied territories – which already represent 19% of the country -, the neutrality of Ukraine with limits on the capacity of its Armed Forces and guarantees that it will not join NATO. In his annual press conference, Putin assured that the end of the invasion is near, because according to him he will soon achieve the objectives of what he continues to call “special operation.”
Russia is winning on the battlefield and continues to gain ground, so it has no incentive to sit down and negotiate. The only thing that, in Denisenko’s opinion, could force him is the state of the Russian economy, “with 62% of the population on the poverty line, and the coal sector and infrastructure on the verge of collapse.” But if Putin is afraid of anything, according to the analyst, it is a drop in the price of oil. And there, experts agree that Trump can tighten. “I am prepared for a meeting if he wants,” Putin said this Thursday about the possibility of meeting the American magnate.
Zelensky knows he needs Trump on his side. Without the United States, he said in Brussels, “it is very difficult to maintain support for Ukraine.” Ukraine will try to convince Trump that a ceasefire is not a good idea, but if it fails, “it will have to adapt to what Western allies suggest,” as the analysts stressed in their presentation this week. Tishkevich believes that it will be key to see if the EU compensates for the support that the United States offers to Ukraine. It’s complicated. Europe can help financially, but kyiv is very dependent on the military capabilities that the United States offers in terms of ammunition, missiles and artillery. Among Ukraine’s urgent needs are anti-aircraft defenses, Zelensky said in Brussels.
These days, debates and conferences on what 2025 will bring are taking place in kyiv, such as that of foresight experts. All kinds of possibilities are analyzed and the situation in Ukraine is compared with what other countries have experienced after different conflicts, such as Germany divided in two after World War II, or the two Koreas. For Tishkevich, one possibility would be what he calls “the Georgia scenario,” which explains: “The battle would stop on the front line and Ukraine would assume that it is not possible to use military power but would not recognize the territories occupied by Russia. No country would recognize Russian legitimacy over these new borders. “Ukraine would try to rebuild the country and recover its military strength.”
As experts debate, politicians propose and the military fight to improve Ukraine’s position, Svetlana Zhigalina, a 53-year-old veterinarian, assumes that Moscow is in a stronger position and that Ukraine will have to make concessions. This former neighbor of Marianka, in Donetsk – who now lives in a reception center in Pavlograd managed by several NGO partners of UNHCR – has moved five times since the conflict began in 2014 and is exhausted, like many compatriots. “We must stop the war now because if not, [las tropas rusas] They are going to occupy more and more territory,” he says. Zhygalina’s eyes glaze over when she is asked the question that Yatsiuk left hanging in the air. What has everything been for? “The war has been going on for 10 years and it’s already worth it. Let the president decide the terms, but let him end it. The risk, if not, is that it will be prolonged and the country will disappear and turn into ashes.”
