New year, new deal? Why peace still feels elusive for Ukraine | Ukraine

“I In his message to the Ukrainian people just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “If I could say in this speech that peace would come in a few minutes, I would give everything in the world. Unfortunately, I cannot say this yet.”

Zelenskyy said the peace deal was “90 percent ready” but added a rebuttal to Donald Trump’s constant claims that a deal is imminent. “This 10% actually includes everything,” he said.

It’s been almost a year since Trump took office and vowed to end Russia’s war against Ukraine within 24 hours. This never seemed possible, but as 2025 draws to a close, a new flurry of US diplomacy has begun, accompanied by more optimistic statements about peace.

The talks started with the leak of the peace plan prepared by Russia and the USA. While Washington told Zelenskyy that Ukraine would have to give up the Donbas region, US military secretary Dan Driscoll gathered diplomats from NATO countries in Kiev for what one person who was there described as a “nightmare meeting” to say Ukraine had to sign the agreement now or face a worse situation in the future.

Zelenskyy, together with his European allies, managed to delay what would have sounded like capitulation to most Ukrainians and began working with the Americans on a new plan. But even though Ukraine and the United States are now “90% ready” for this plan, the new year begins with the feeling that peace is still not achieved. There is little to suggest Russia will get on board, and no matter how much Trump claims Putin wants peace, Russian officials have made clear they will only sign an agreement that addresses what they call the “root causes” of the war.

But as Ukrainians endure another winter of power outages, air strikes and shattered families, there is a sense that some kind of respite is needed soon. Ukrainians are feeling the fatigue of the all-out war that has been going on for nearly four years.

“When I’m at the front, I feel good, but when I get home, I have bad dreams, I take antidepressants, etc.,” said Serhiy, a Ukrainian soldier who served in some of the most volatile parts of the front line and was on home leave in Kiev in December. He said he was ready to continue the fight rather than sign up to something that could be disastrous for Ukraine in the long run, but acknowledged that he might be in the minority right now. “I think at this stage the majority would probably be ready for a bad deal, anything to stop the war,” he said.

For many Ukrainians, this new year has been the most psychologically difficult year since the start of the war. At the beginning of 2023, there was still some hope that Ukraine’s military success would surpass Russia and lead to something approaching victory. By 2024 that looked much less likely, but some hope remained.

By the time 2025 rolled around, it was clear that victory on the battlefield was not imminent, but Trump’s election to a second term raised hopes in Kiev that the wild card politician could benefit Ukraine. A prediction often heard in Kiev a year ago was that once Trump realized Putin was not serious about peace, he would turn to fully supporting Ukraine, ignoring the Biden administration’s red lines and fears of escalation.

This has not happened, and as 2026 begins, it is difficult for many in Ukraine to find anything that would give hope of a positive medium-term solution. The best-case scenario for now appears to be that the Ukrainian military and society can continue to resist until the situation in Russia deteriorates so much that the Kremlin may be forced to agree to negotiations on terms that will not require Ukraine to surrender. There is no need to think about worst-case scenarios.

Zelenskyy on Friday appointed Kyrylo Budanov, his longtime head of military intelligence, as chief of staff after his closest adviser Andrii Yermak resigned several weeks ago amid a corruption scandal.

A volatile and charismatic figure known for planning daring operations against Russia, Budanov has good contacts with Western intelligence agencies and also maintains contacts with Russia regarding prisoner exchanges. His appointment could signal a new approach by Kiev to security and negotiations.

The coming year could also be a politically challenging year for Zelenskyy as he approaches seven years into the five-year presidential term he was elected to in the spring of 2019.

Martial law in Ukraine prevents elections from being held, and while there is widespread criticism of Zelenskyy’s leadership on a variety of factors, the impossibility of a wartime election is one point of broad consensus across the Ukrainian political spectrum.

“This will only do harm,” Serhiy Rakhmanin, a lawmaker from the opposition Holos party, told the Guardian. “He is the commander-in-chief, and whatever our problems with him are, the country is in a position where we don’t have that luxury. This will only help the enemy.”

But Trump called the election, repeating Russia’s claim that not holding an election would make Zelenskyy an illegitimate president. “They haven’t held elections for a long time. They talk about democracy, but it’s getting to the point where it’s no longer democracy.”

Zelenskyy reacted by saying he would ask parliament to enact the necessary laws to allow presidential elections in wartime and asked his western allies to explain how they would view security arrangements for voting in a country at war. “I don’t want anyone to use the lack of elections as an argument against Ukraine, so I’m reacting to what our partners are saying,” he said.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former commander of the Ukrainian army and current ambassador to London, is widely seen as Zelenskyy’s strongest opponent in the elections. Although Zaluzhnyi has turned down previous offers to join Zelenskyy’s electoral team and has been persuaded by the idea of ​​a political candidacy, he is biding his time, aware of the damage a competitive election could do to Ukraine’s fragile wartime society.

“He is not actively preparing for a campaign, and the public opinion is that he is not thinking about and preparing for elections while the war is going on,” a source close to Zaluzhnyi said. “Time will tell whether he will enter politics”

The year ended with Russia claiming that Ukraine had carried out a massive drone attack on Putin’s residence, an action it said would be met with a harsh response. Moscow provided no evidence to support the claim; Kiev insisted the entire story was fabricated, and the CIA reached the same conclusion, according to US media outlets. It was a reminder of how easy it would be for Russia to find a thin excuse to restart the war, even if a ceasefire was reached during elections or as part of a deal.

Rakhmanin said he thought there was “no objective reason” for the talks to succeed, while he felt Russia was continuing to advance its goals on the battlefield, but there was a small chance of an agreement by the end of winter.

“We need three things to come together: more systematic military and financial support from Europe, stabilization of the front line to stop Russia’s advance, and the beginning of serious economic problems for Russia,” Rakhmanin said. “If these three factors come together, things can work out even with Trump’s attitude. But if even one of them does not work in our favor, then the situation will be extremely difficult.”