Ukraine wary of peace deal that does not guarantee long-term security against Russia

Ukraine is ending its third year of war against Russia trying to imagine what 2025 will bring. The general desire is for next year to bring an end to the fighting, but the terms of a fair and lasting peace agreement are still to be defined. Kyiv is nervously scrutinizing the signals it receives from its allies, especially the United States with the return of Donald Trump to the White House on January 20. But also from its EU partners, with whom Volodymyr Zelenskiy met on Thursday in Brussels. The Ukrainian president insisted that joining NATO would be the security guarantee that his country needs against future threats from Moscow.

The majority of Ukrainians are now in favor of opening negotiations, according to a Gallup poll published at the end of November: 52% of respondents favor a peace deal, compared to 22% in 2022, when the Russian invasion began. Those who urge fighting until victory on the battlefield have fallen to 38%, compared to 73% at the start of the conflict. Among the factors that have reversed opinion, respondents point to fatigue, the situation at the front, where the Kremlin’s greater resources and higher number of troops is making progress, and the uncertainty of the Trump factor. Zelenskiy has also been changing direction in recent months: the idea of negotiating is already on the agenda, although he is in no hurry. As he often reiterates, he wants to achieve peace through force.

Halyna Yatsyuk, 38, is part of the Ukrainian population that advocates continuing to fight. She fled from Lysychansk (Luhansk) in 2022, settled in Pavlograd, in the Dnipro region, and there she experienced a Russian bombing raid last September. “We all want the war to end now,” she said a few days ago in her apartment, which still has a window without glass. But not at any price: “We have lost our homes, many people have died, our lives are in danger and so are those of our relatives at the front, and for what?” she asks when faced with the possibility of a forced end to the war.

Hanna Hopko, co-founder of the Ukraine International Victory Center, was “cautiously optimistic” on Thursday. The former parliamentary deputy sees signs that European leaders — who have agreed to speed up arms deliveries to give Ukraine a strong bargaining position for negotiations — will not call for a ceasefire. “They understand the price and consequences of a bad deal, especially after [the Donbas agreements] Minsk I and II,” she said.

Security guarantees are essential for Ukraine and Hopko is convinced that the EU partners understand this. The question remains as to what guarantees will be acceptable to the parties. French President Emmanuel Macron is promoting the idea of a peacekeeping mission with European troops, given the refusal of some NATO members to invite Ukraine into the alliance.

Trump is one of the leaders who rejects this. He also wants an immediate cessation of hostilities, as he said after meeting the Ukrainian president in Paris on December 8. Keith Kellogg, whom the future Republican president will name as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, outlined his idea for ending the conflict in April: freezing the front line and offering guarantees that could include an increase in the supply of weapons. Kellogg will travel to Kyiv in January, where he is expected with hope. Hopko, also president of the National Interest Defense Network (ANTS), sees it as a good sign that he has said that the visit is to gather data, not to negotiate.

Ukrainian Institute for the Future analyst Igar Tishkevich also does not believe that negotiations will be as immediate as Trump has indicated. “They are not possible now, because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not want them. The only option he considers is for Ukraine to surrender; and Ukraine does not want to start the talks yet, it wants to continue fighting to show that it can stop Russia and become stronger,” he explained on Thursday. Tishkevich, who this week presented his predictions for 2025 at an event in Kyiv with two colleagues, pointed to a possible start to the talks in mid-March, after Trump takes office.

Putin rejects a truce

At Monday’s presentation, the institute’s executive director, Vadym Denysenko, also stressed the difficulty of getting Putin to sit down to negotiate. “We do not need a truce; we need a long-term, lasting peace backed by guarantees for the Russian Federation,” the Russian president said on Thursday. Moscow demands the recognition of the occupied territories — which already make up 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. At his annual press conference, Putin assured that the end of the war is near, because according to him he will soon achieve the objectives of what he continues to call a “special military operation.”

Russia is in the ascendancy on the battlefield and still gaining ground, so it has no incentive to sit down to negotiate. The only thing that could force the Kremlin to do so, according to Denysenko, is the state of the Russian economy, “with 62% of the population living in poverty, and the coal sector and infrastructure on the verge of collapse.” But if there is one thing Putin fears, according to the analyst, it is a fall in the price of oil. And in this area, experts agree that Trump can apply pressure. “I am ready for a meeting if he wants,” Putin said on Thursday about the possibility of talks with the president-elect.

Zelenskiy knows he needs Trump on his side. Without the U.S., he said in Brussels, “it is very difficult to maintain support for Ukraine.” Kyiv 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 analysts stressed in their presentation this week. Tishkevich believes that it will be key to see whether the EU compensates for the support that the United States offers to Ukraine. It is a complicated issue. Europe can help financially, but Kyiv is 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, Zelenskiy said in Brussels.

Debates and meetings are taking place in Kyiv about what 2025 will bring, such as those of experts in foresight. All kinds of possibilities are being analyzed and the situation in Ukraine has been compared with that experienced by other countries after conflicts, such as the divided Germany after World War II, or the two Koreas. For Tishkevich, one possibility would be what he calls “the Georgia scenario.” “The battle would stop at 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 Russia’s legitimacy over these new borders. Ukraine would try to rebuild the country and regain its military strength.”

While experts debate, politicians talk, and the military fights to improve Ukraine’s position, Svetlana Zhygalina, a 53-year-old veterinarian, assumes that Moscow is in a stronger position and that Kyiv will have to make concessions. The former resident of Marinka in Donetsk — who now lives in a shelter in Pavlograd run by several UNHCR partner NGOs — has moved five times since the Donbas conflict began in 2014 and is exhausted, like many of her compatriots. “We must stop the war now, otherwise [Russian troops] will occupy more and more territory,” she says. Zhygalina’s eyes fill with tears when asked the question left hanging by Yatsyuk. What was it all for? “The war has been going on for 10 years and that’s enough. Let the president decide the terms, but let him end it. The risk, otherwise, is that it will be prolonged and the country will disappear and turn into ashes.”

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