Where Does Ukraine Go From Here?

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

After three years of war, Ukraine is facing intense pressure from Donald Trump to reach a settlement with Russia. Trump has engaged directly with Vladimir Putin while calling Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator. His administration has sidelined European allies while joining a handful of Russian allies in voting against a UN resolution condemning Putin’s aggression. And U.S. officials have pressured Ukraine into signing over critical mineral resources. And yet despite this new geopolitical reality, and despite month after month of grueling fighting that has Russian forces taking territory by the day, Ukrainians themselves remain deeply resistant to accepting an end to the war that would sacrifice their country’s territory and sovereignty.

In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, the Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk explains that this resistance emerges not only out of a sense of patriotism but also, she writes, “because they know there is little chance of survival under Moscow’s rule.” For years, Gumenyuk has reported from Ukraine’s conflict zones, documenting the brutality and trying to understand the logic of Russian occupation. She spoke with senior editor Hugh Eakin on February 21 about how Ukrainians are reacting to the shift in U.S. policy, what life is like in the almost 20 percent of their country under Russian control, and where Ukraine goes from here.

HUGH EAKIN

Hi, Nataliya, welcome. It’s great to have you.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Thank you. Thank you so much for all your support and working with me.

HUGH EAKIN

So much to talk about today. I want to get to your fascinating and sobering new essay called “Putin’s Ukraine,” which is in the new Foreign Affairs. But I thought we should begin with the immediate situation, such as it is by the day, and what many commentators are calling a startling, even shocking break in relations between Washington and Kyiv. I should say we’re recording on Friday morning, February 21. Obviously, the situation may be different even a few days from now. But I just wanted to put to you: what is the reaction now in Kyiv to some of the drama of the last few days?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

I cannot say that we are shocked because it’s like, sometimes you have something in your mind—the worst you don’t want to happen, so you don’t speak about it aloud. So we didn’t want, for quite a few months, to speak, and there was a lot of wishful thinking that maybe something good will happen with Donald Trump. But seriously, for quite some time, Ukrainians, including Ukrainian leadership, were counting on the situation when there would be a time when we won’t be able to count on the United States. So it’s not totally unexpected, but it’s not something you want to happen, and I still think it’s in progress and think might be changing because you really don’t want fully to lose the U.S. support and you really don’t want to have this divorce between the United States and Europe.

So it’s kind of an interesting moment for Ukrainians, that they don’t want to fully alienate Donald Trump and his administration because you really understand how dependent Ukraine is on the Western support. But at the same time, there is a lot of determination, unexpectedly for me, unity, because if you speak about the loudest voices, they’re like, “Let’s fight on our own.” The immediate reaction is like, “Let’s fight on our own. We’ll make it whatsoever.” But the most sobering voices would say, “Let’s try to figure out how we can depend less on the United States but still not break up fully.”

HUGH EAKIN

In fact, I was reminded, watching all of this unfold, including today—we’re already in a different place than we were a few days ago. Trump was calling Zelensky a dictator now. Today, it’s, “Oh, will you sign the minerals deal?” Whatever that deal is, we don’t really know. But I was reminded of the piece that you did right after the U.S. election in November, in which you laid out the fact that Ukrainians are quite used to this, which is important to remember. And I just wanted to read a quote from that because I think it’s so prescient to what is happening now.

You said, “Ukraine has many reasons to be concerned about a second Trump presidency. Trump has not said how he would end the war or even under what conditions. In the background, there is his longtime admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who was one of the first Republicans to embrace indifference to Ukraine as a policy position. All this has led many to fear that Washington—by far Kyiv’s biggest arm supplier—might cut off the flow of aid, or even allow Moscow to dictate the terms of the peace.”

And then you go on to say, “But the reality of the war has made Ukrainians pragmatic…Setting aside Trump’s campaign rhetoric, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to work with him. After all, Ukrainians lived through the first Trump administration and have some sense of what they are getting: deal-making and attempts to flatter Putin, but also, eventually, a major sale of lethal arms, including Javelin antitank weapons, which have been critical in the fight against Russia. Zelensky’s task is and will remain to find ways to receive what his government needs to defend the population in the long run.” And so this is more or less where we are today, is it not?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

It is. But I remember, prior to the campaign, the U.S. rhetoric was not also very good. I remember very well that day, during the campaign, the Ukrainian ambassador was accused of organizing the partisan meeting, when the Democrats—where Zelensky visited one of the military production in Pennsylvania, and there was even the demand of the Republican party leadership in the Congress to fire the Ukrainian ambassador.

I also remember that the Republicans didn’t want to meet with Zelensky at that time, but somehow it worked and Zelensky met Donald Trump. It’s like these moments when it’s totally cut off, then something is happening. I think these moments will be still ongoing, but what is new and I think not that much for us, rather than for Europe, is that quite a clear idea that the relation between Europe and Donald Trump and the United States are not like they were, that there are a lot of concern that the U.S. won’t be backing up European allies.

So I do think it’s a bit more serious and the level of flattering of Donald Trump with Russians is quite, I won’t say surprising, but Trump directly quoting Putin, more or less speaking in the same words, again, it’s not something we couldn’t expect, but I wouldn’t underestimate that. But yes, I think you Ukrainians are used to that.

HUGH EAKIN

Of course, under the surface we know that much more serious negotiations are going on with the actual negotiating team—Keith Kellogg meeting with Zelensky yesterday, I believe, and we have other developments, so it’s hard to tell what on the surface really reflects actual actions and what is more the rhetorical wave that we’ve almost become used to now, driven by social media.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Look, I shouldn’t also maybe miss a chance to say that if you really speak about public opinion, yes, quite a lot of people were furious about the deal where the United States gets to have half of the Ukrainian natural resources. We don’t know exactly what is in this deal, but more or less, it sounded appalling. People didn’t like the tone. Emotionally, Ukrainians are more angry than generally the political leadership of Ukraine is saying.

But, yes, we are in the moment when we believe there could be a decrease of American aid. And first of all, with U.S. aid, there is no longer any money, to be honest. Despite all the courts and processes, it’s clear that part of the financial support is not there already. It’s kind of happened. That is already there. I think what we need to speak about is whether Ukraine would be able, if the U.S. won’t be giving this aid, to buy it, even to ask Europeans to buy those weapons.

And I think that is the real thing, because of course we can speak about the deal, about the settlement, but there won’t be any less intense fight on the battleground. While there would be discussion about the settlement and the peace negotiation with Moscow, the major thing for Ukraine would be still defending itself from the Russian missiles and we really need the Patriots, we really need the ammunition for Patriots and other air defense, but also on the frontlines.

So it’s still the most critical thing at this moment for Ukraine to balance and try to fight this war with decreased American aid.

HUGH EAKIN

Let’s talk about that for a moment. We are now at the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion and the actual frontline situation in some ways has been somewhat lost the last couple of weeks. Even as this fight was playing out in the media, there were reports just this past week that the Russian offensive is slowing. I believe Ukrainian forces retook a village near Pokrovsk, and the drone defenses have had a lot of success recently. Just on the military side, where is the current situation?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

It looks like it’s better than half a year ago because I remember very well, the whole autumn, the discussion was, you know, that Pokrovsk would be overtaken and then Russia would be very close to the occupation of the full Donetsk region, something they really want because it’s a part of their special operation. But indeed, I even had a chance, very, very briefly, to meet one of the commanders of the ground forces a couple of weeks ago and he said, “For the last two weeks, the situation near Pokrovsk is definitely improving.” That’s what we hear from the Western analysts who are also saying that for Russians to overtake the major towns, or even Pokrovsk and the major towns in the east, they will need half a year or a year. So it really slowed down.

And that’s why I’m really returning to this point that the whole discussion this week since the Munich Security Conference, since the meeting in Riyadh, was dominated by the fact that Ukraine was not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia. It was not on the table. The Europeans were also not there.

What is the leverage of the U.S. to force Ukraine to the deal? I’m using this terminology: “force the deal on Ukraine.” The leverage is, of course, military aid, because Ukrainians really don’t want the deal without the guarantee. I think that the Americans are coming from the position that Ukrainians will accept the deal whatsoever, and Ukrainians coming from the position that we won’t accept the deal we don’t like. And there is some misunderstanding in the media that people are coming from two different positions.

Why I’m saying that Ukrainians won’t accept: because Ukrainians won’t accept anything which doesn’t provide any security guarantees, and they are not at all discussed at this stage. They were not there during the meeting of JD Vance with President Zelensky, when there was this discussion about the minerals offered. There were demands from Ukraine or, let’s say, suggestions of what Ukraine should give, but there was nothing about what the U.S. will provide in return. And if nothing is provided in return, it means the situation for Ukrainians isn’t improving. So there is no sense even to consider it to be a settlement. It won’t be accepted without any guarantees.

HUGH EAKIN

Maybe this brings us to your piece. One of the opening conceits of your essay, which seems very important, is that we have this assumption in the West that after three years Ukraine must be desperate for a deal. Your point is actually, no, no deal is better than a bad deal and that given all other realities, without these crucial guarantees, Ukraine is not going to just stop fighting.

But I think the other crucial point that is in your framing is that in fact there’s a disconnect in how the West sees the war now and what it is like in Ukraine and not just on the frontlines, but as your pieces have continually pointed out, the civilian situation in Ukraine is remarkably different than what might be portrayed as a total war over a society. Can you just give us a sense of that now? Where are we now after we’re two-thirds of the way through the third winter of the war.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

So indeed, it’s something very unusual, this abnormal normalcy. And of course, as a Ukrainian, I’m permanently living in Kyiv and we have airstrikes almost every night around the country. It’s obviously tiring. There is a level of devastation and 20 percent of the country is occupied, and some parts of the country are destroyed, particularly on the frontline. But since it’s a big country, the rest of it manages to live and function. For instance, for the second year, despite all of the negative prognosis, we didn’t have any serious blackouts during winter. There was energy. There was electricity, despite Russian shelling on the infrastructure all the time. Obviously not without the Western financial support, including huge European ones, Ukraine has a functioning economy because the pensions have paid, the healthcare system is working, education is there, the bank system is working. Yes, we have curfew, but life is kind of normal in most of the country.

Of course, there is always a permanent risk of dying for the people who are fighting on the frontline, and almost every Ukrainian has a family member who is fighting. But at the same time, modern technology and generally the functioning state allows Ukrainians live as if the war is not there, especially for those who are further from the frontline, or in the big cities. I think I usually try to explain it as a chance of terrorist attacks. You live your life as if it’s normal, and then there is always a chance that the Russian bomb would fall on your head at night, during the day, would you be in hospital, would you be in a shopping mall, would you be elsewhere? But there is this air defense alert so you can find your way to hide. And also, first of all, there is air defense, contrary to 2022.

What is also missing in this point—that Ukrainians today, let’s say, it can fall easily if there is no money at all, but somehow it’s more stable. Compared to zero production of weapons in 2022, today, the Ukrainian government claims 40 percent of the weapons used in the frontline are produced in Ukraine. We were fully dependent, we had almost nothing. Now it’s different.
And also, people are prepared for the risk. Therefore, the life we have, despite all the exhaustion, is definitely better than the life under the Russian occupation, which is something we couldn’t even imagine how bad it would be in 2022.

It’s really the level of political repression. The repression against the people is horrific. The crimes which are committed under the occupation, but also a prospect that if we give up, if we just freeze the conflict today and the Russians would attack in couple of years, then the cities, which were protected, like Kyiv, which didn’t fall in 2022—which could have been occupied because the Russian troops were really close–If there is just a settlement without the guarantees, then Kyiv could be in a situation like Kherson, which had been occupied, or other territories. So it’s a very clear choice. What we have is bad, you don’t want to have it, but it’s so much better than what the freeze without guarantees or the Russian occupation will bring that you opt for preserving what we have.

HUGH EAKIN

This brings us to the heart of your piece, and let’s turn to that now because I think in “Putin’s Ukraine,” your essay, you do something which is really remarkable at this stage into the war, which is, I think you reconceptualize how we should think about the war. The whole question of occupation is interesting because I think even for the military analysts, it has been to the side of the main discussion of the war, and we have this human rights perspective, and this is, of course, important, and your own work on this has been crucial. Your organization, the Reckoning Project, is in fact doing human rights documentation. I think it may be actually surprising, knowing your work, that you are arguing, actually, that the human rights perspective is missing the larger point.

I’ll just read this passage because I think it neatly captures what you’re trying to say. You write, “As many Ukrainians recognize, what observers in the West have characterized as brutal excesses in occupied areas—human rights abuses, political repression, and war crimes—are in fact a central part of Russia’s war strategy. The issue is not merely what happens to those under Russian rule but how Moscow has used its control of significant numbers of Ukrainians to undermine the stability of the whole country, even without taking more territory.” And then you go on to say, “Put simply, Russian control over any part of Ukraine subverts and corrodes Ukrainian sovereignty everywhere.”

So in a sense, you’re saying this is war strategy; it’s not excess. Even systematic abuses are not just wanton brutality; this is a concerted part of what Russia is trying to do to achieve its larger goals in Ukraine. Can you just explain what you’re getting at?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Yeah, so there are two sides. Indeed, I’ve been working on the war crimes documentation since 2022, but since 2014 I’ve been reporting, mainly from the human rights perspective, the occupation of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, traveling to Crimea quite often. It was very, very hard to raise awareness internationally about the human rights abuses, repression of what’s going on in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainians knew well what was going on. But I think we were all mistaken, including myself, including a lot of Ukrainian human rights defenders, because we were always speaking about that as political repressions. These two words, of real politics, of geopolitics, sometimes the human rights people consider to be very naïve, idealistic, the war is different.

But what we observed in those eight years of the occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine was a preparation by Russia to launch the bigger war, to use those territories as a launchpad for the war, militarized peninsulas, accumulate the troops there. And put behind bars the people who could be outspoken, not because they’re politically criticizing the Russian regime and they didn’t want to have any dissent. They really literally wanted those people who, in February 2022, could be picking and telling that, “Oh, the full-scale invasion is there, the tanks are on the border with the rest of Ukraine.” They were all behind bars. And the whole strategy of bringing the population to the occupied territories, putting the people en masse in jail, torturing them, beating them, and threatening against any dissent, they were part of pacifying the territory so their military can fight.

That’s what we really expect from the occupied territories. The closer that they are to the rest of the Ukraine, the more territories they control, the larger chances are that in some years the very similar territories today, of Kherson region, the southern part of it, Zaporizhzhia region, would be again used like the launchpad further to attack Kharkiv, to attack Dnipro, to attack Odessa. But also the whole administrative process of giving the Russian passport to the Ukrainian population, it’s all part of this strategy of how to control the part of the territory which could be used for waging even the bigger war.

But there is something else, which is also very interesting, and that’s something which I heard from the Russian side in Riyadh. The Europeans and people like myself who follow the negotiations, which were called Minsk Agreement II, but including French and Germans, recognize that what Russia is offering today, to the new American administration, is more or less something which was there, and which was discussed in a very similar way for the last eight years.

HUGH EAKIN

Before 2022?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Before 2022. It’s really strikingly similar to the Minsk offers. We call it Minsk III without Zelensky. It’s really just almost the same. But at that time, there were discussions about the elections in the occupied territories, where the Russians could put their puppets and destroy Ukraine from within, control it politically.

And it’s even amazing to understand how they are literally offering almost the same deal. It’s too similar, but on a larger scale, with more territories occupied. And why it works: because the Americans, the current administration, was not there. It’s really fascinating how they are not even trying to hide it.

HUGH EAKIN

It’s a case of déja vu, you might say. There’s a lot there. I want to unpack this in several steps because I think it’s really important to get clear on what you’re saying. Firstly, in a sense, we’re mistaken when we talk about the third anniversary because this is really an 11-year war, and I think as your piece makes so clear, the Ukrainian understanding of the war really begins with 2014 and specifically the occupation, which was such a reality from that moment, and your reporting in Crimea and what you actually call the “Crimean toolkit” that Russia has developed in Crimea and in eastern Donbas, and we’re now seeing up to a whole new level in the territories that have been occupied since 2022.

But just first, to explain that toolkit, as you describe it, because I think we have this idea in our head that occupation is just a military force coming in and establishing military rule over a territory. And in fact, this has a whole series of implications in how order is imposed and what it actually means for the rest of Ukraine and why is it that the 80 percent of Ukraine that is free today nevertheless is acutely feeling the occupation every day.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

I think we still need to differentiate the type of the occupation which was happening before 2022 because before that, it was something we could expect, that journalists, the Crimean indigenous population, which were always not trustful in Russia, would be risking their lives while staying in the occupation because they were detained, they were politically repressed. Everything Ukrainian was forbidden, the schools were Russified, the Russians were preparing and teaching the children in totally different narratives; more or less really Russifying this population, but creating the situation when the population of the occupied territories could be drafted to the army. But at the same time, we could understand who was under the attack.

What happened after 2022—I remember very well the conversation which for me described it very, very well. I talked with the wife of one of the survivors, a man in Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia region, near Mariupol, who’d been detained and tortured and treated horribly by the Russians. She really said, “It’s enough to have your own opinion to be arrested and detained. It doesn’t matter which opinion you should have.” Now we can see that anybody who is not openly supporting the Russian occupation can be taken to prison, can be violently treated. I should say within our project, The Reckoning Project, we have talked to over 500 survivors of the war crimes and half of them are from the occupied territories and all people from the occupied territories, almost all of them, were at some moment detained, beaten, tortured, and dozens of them electrocuted. Really the magnitude of the violence used against the people is drastic.

But the second thing is social and political life. Indeed, it’s not about even having a Ukrainian flag. You can be told that once you used to have the Ukrainian flag—that’s already the reason to be detained and be suspicious. But also without the Russian passport, for instance, you cannot get the medical aid, including the urgent medical aid, or you can be threatened that your children would be taken. You need to cooperate with the Russian state in some way.

But also politically, these territories are in limbo. Some of the parts of this territories, there was no active battlefield for some time there but in some parts, because after the first year when Russians couldn’t really occupy any bigger town, what they were doing, they literally were destroying the town, and when the Ukrainian army had to withdraw, they were taking these areas. But they’re not really rebuilding them properly, and people are really suffering there because there is no proper schooling, proper health care. But the people who are brought from Russia, they receive preferences.

HUGH EAKIN

You said the people brought from Russia—because I think this is another aspect of the occupation that we in the West have lost sight of, and that is the very significant program of bringing in Russians to this territory. And again, this goes back to Crimea, as you say. I think however many—is it 800,000?—it’s quite a large number who were brought into Crimea after 2014. This, in a sense, is a model for what’s happening in some areas of the new territories.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Yes. It’s something which was estimated after quite a few years that in Crimea—which, overall it’s about two million people—and up to 800,000 people were brought from Russia to the peninsula, which also creates the long-lasting problem, because who will speak about public opinion in Crimea today? How can we define it if it’s not about the people who used to live there before? And if the same will happen in Mariupol where also people are moved from the rest of Russia? It’s more or less erasing anything Ukrainian in the territories and creating the long-lasting problem.

At the same time, for Ukrainians, it’s hard because if you don’t live in those territories, for instance, and you let’s say move to Kyiv or Kharkiv or to a different town, but you have your flat, an apartment there, there are cases when the housing was taken away from people if they didn’t return to the occupied territories and they were given to different people, to the newcomers.

So it’s an extremely complex and difficult life. And it’s also about the difficult choices. Do you want to leave this territory, abandon this territory, and fully leave it for the loyal Russian citizens, but also the life there is unlivable if you are not openly supporting the occupation? Of course, a lot of people live in the occupation without supporting the Russian regime, but that’s a huge challenge.

And who are the people coming? It’s military, it’s their families, these are law enforcement. It’s really creating this territory which could be hostile to the Ukrainian state. It’s a complex issue how Ukraine should deal with the population with the territories afterwards. But I would insist that time, in this regard, is not on our side. The longer the occupation lasts—For instance, we agree to the freezing situation as it is—within a couple of years, children won’t go to the schools where there would be any sign of the Ukrainian language. Moreover, they are taught a totally different version of history of what’s going on.

So there is also a huge propaganda, brainwashing campaign, and quite a lot of people also have forgotten how Russia has changed since 2022. I’ve been to Russia, the last time in summer 2021. I have friends and family members, and we know it’s a different country. I know a lot of European and American experts, they have been to Moscow: it’s a vibrant city, big, looks quite Western. Again, I’ve been quite a lot to Moscow after 2014. It’s a very different country today.

The Russian regime for quite some time offered their citizens, like, “We bring you financial stability, something like that, but do not express your opinion, express your opinion in the kitchen or whatever.” After the full-scale invasion, it’s a very ideological state. People are prosecuted. They’re taken from their houses. It’s really more like North Korea than we can imagine, the ideology in the schools, in the universities. And that’s why what is being created in these territories, it’s really a pretty drastic type of regime, a kind of warlord, military-type repressive territories which you really don’t want to be there. Me and anybody whom I know out of my circle knows that there is zero chance to survive in the Russian occupation if we stay there. For us, there is no chance.

HUGH EAKIN

One way of thinking about this: there are actually two different occupations happening. There’s the occupation of Ukrainians who are stuck in these areas, this reign of terror, which you described so well in your piece. And then there’s this second occupation of these Russian communities which are essentially being created on the ruins, in Mariupol, literally on the ruins of this once very large and flourishing city where the population has been largely destroyed. It’s quite an astonishing story that has happened underneath the actual top level of the war.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Again, in this regard, time is not solving the problem. The cease-fire, just keeping the situation as it is. First of all, Russia itself would accumulate weapons, would still work with all their partners in North Korea or Iran or wherever to build their military economy, to produce more weapons, to catch up because they are also exhausted. But at the same time, there would be this broadening of the territory where the Russians would be able to do whatever they want, not following any agreements, but there won’t be anybody to watch that.

Again, the closer to the rest of the Ukrainian territory, the more fortified the line would be, the more soldiers they would have because they’re disproportionately trying to mobilize the local population. It cannot happen today, but in the future, of course, they would use this population as well to have more soldiers to fight against Ukraine.

HUGH EAKIN

Let’s just talk for a minute about the issue of negotiations, because I think also the way we think about territory is essentially that is the central thing: it’s how much territory would be on each side of any cease-fire. And as you point out in your piece, it’s not about territory; it’s about what is happening on the territory. I think it’s useful to remember, as you point out ,that there’s something like six million Ukrainians under the occupied areas. It’s a huge population and this is actually less than the many more who have been able to leave or to go to the West. I guess the larger question is here, what do you see playing out in a cease-fire that does not provide the kinds of guarantees that Ukrainians are saying are absolutely essential?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

The most important part is no repetition. Let’s say that Ukraine would be less militarized, and then Russia attacks. So for Ukraine, the most important is being even stronger protected than it is now. So there would be this level of deterrence that the Russians won’t attack again and if they attack, we would understand what will happen.

I think that now discussion is really shifting too much about very hypothetical ideas about some European troops on the ground without a clear understanding of what they should do there.
But for Ukraine it’s more about protecting the sky, protecting the country, having superiority on air, because if Ukraine has superiority on air, like a usual NATO army has, the Russians won’t be able to wage this type of war, to be honest. It’s not the miraculous kind of solution which doesn’t exist. It’s pretty simple.

Now, coming to the idea of Ukraine being part of NATO—and by the way, yes, reminding everybody that just part of Germany was accepted to NATO in the 1950s, so I don’t think it’s totally impossible—but we see that there is no willingness of the American president. I won’t speak about the red lines from the Russian side because if we really speak about the Russian red lines, militarization of Ukraine is also similarly a red line for them. NATO is largely symbolic but NATO is the cheapest option. As long as we start to list what are the security guarantees, you start to write one, two, three, four, and then you understand that actually you’re inventing the wheel. And then there is a question whether you need to create something which is very similar to NATO, just isn’t called NATO, but isn’t creating the systems which duplicate each other, maybe weakening the current alliance.

But I don’t think that with the Ukrainians, the symbolic things matter at this stage that much. But there are not yet in the discussion the real things which won’t allow Russia to repeat this type of war. Before we discuss the real guarantees, everything else doesn’t look like serious discussion, like real-deal, like real settlement.

HUGH EAKIN

Indeed, maybe one of the more important takeaways of what is happening now is that the most likely outcome in the immediate near term is more fighting and how should we think about that?

I think it’s helpful to remember one of the points you made in your previous piece last summer after the Kursk offensive, and that offensive itself followed a major Russian offensive, which we may have forgotten now, but this was a failure, that Russia tried to take Kharkiv. And as you concluded in that piece, as of the time you wrote the piece, it seemed highly unlikely that Russia would be able to not only not to capture Kharkiv, but any other large Ukrainian city. That in itself seems quite remarkable now. We can remember that there was the failure to take Kyiv at the start of the war. There was the failure to occupy Kherson, which was occupied for nine months, but then lost, then the repeated failures to take Kharkiv. I just wonder at this point, do you stand by that? Do you think that Russia is actually unable to, that in a sense, that what it is fighting over is these areas of occupation but it has not actually achieved these goals that it set out to?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Look, Russia called the North Korean troops to free the Kursk region. It’s very important for them. Putin really wanted to liberate the Kursk region before meeting with Trump, before the deal, because then it gives him an opportunity to ask again for the freeze of the territories because now if you really ask for the freeze, then it means that Ukraine is controlling part of Russian land.

By the way also, it’s worth it to say and understand what the Russian red lines mean. Many people were saying, “Crimea is a red line for Putin. That is a red line for Putin.” Ukraine in the end occupied part of Russia and is waging the war in Russian territory. But what does Russia do? Russia does everything possible to fight back, but it’s already half a year. I honestly thought that it would be way faster for them to liberate the Kursk region. So it’s not really easy. Again, it costs the lives of Ukrainian soldiers; it could be done better. For Ukraine it’s the most important argument as well, saying that what President Trump is doing today is prolonging the war.
The war is bad for every society. I really understand well that it’s not something we want to prolong.

But the settlement isn’t the end because the occupation is not peace; occupation is just another way of war. We cannot call the occupation a liberation, the peace, especially if it’s used for further attacks. So yeah, I don’t see now the opportunity to occupy Kharkiv, Dnipro, or Kyiv, but it doesn’t mean they won’t try. Russia is not that mighty to take over Ukraine, but it’s strong enough to destroy a lot.

But what Ukrainians are trying to say is that Ukrainian task is not really to destroy Russia or win over Russia as such, but make everything possible that their mission in Ukraine will fail. And their mission is failing. It’s already failed and it’s failing. That is a realistic goal for Ukraine to let them know that there is no sense to do that. They won’t get more. They won’t destroy the Ukrainian state; it’ll still exist. So they will, in some moment, retreat to some extent.

HUGH EAKIN

In short, you could say, even if Ukraine can’t win, it can make Russia fail. Realistically, recapturing all of that territory now, in the immediate future, maybe impossible, but you can ensure that Russia is continuing to fail in its own goals and that, in a way, is a victory and maybe a better one than entering some kind of deal that would, in a sense, undermine the future security of the country.

I just want to ask you one final question because I think maybe this is left out, and this will be on a lot of people’s minds here, and I think there’s a general sense that Ukraine has had a remarkable run these three years, but is it sustainable now? The manpower, the flow of arms, and of course, in the background is everything you’ve said about U.S. support. But beyond the question of U.S. support, just from the internal perspective, can Ukraine keep fighting this war?

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Of course, there is a huge task for the Ukrainian society and state to go on as long as it takes. It’s not something Ukrainians really feel is fair and just. But a couple of things in terms of, for instance, for mobilization, which is very critical, of course you need to have manpower to fight back. Now we started discussing how normal life is in some of the parts of Ukraine where there is no war and it was the choice of the Ukrainian government not to force people to leave the country, to keep taxpayers inside the country, to have this double life where you have the frontline and the normal life. I think that if things are getting too bad, part of the Ukrainians would have to decrease the level of their life: pay way higher taxes, have way more limitations. It’s complicated, because then Ukraine may lose more people, people leaving the country, not staying, which means Ukraine may lose money from the taxpayers. So it’s a very complex decision and I think in this regard, Ukrainians have to be prepared that the level of life would be worse. It would be much harder, but it’s still possible.

Of course, we can’t discount, also, what Russia will be doing. The Russians will be trying during this way to divide Ukrainian society, play with vulnerabilities. We are already observing how they’re using these talks in Riyadh and the message that, “Oh, the U.S. has abandoned Ukraine,” in order to sow division and create this atmosphere of despair. The mood in Moscow, they celebrate. See how this campaign is floating the Ukrainian media space in the social media, in the Telegram channel, celebrating the ideas that the West has abandoned Ukraine.

So it’s also something to take into account that if the life of the people would get worse and there would be this information campaign from Moscow, there could be a different type of mood. But what is also interesting, in the days after the Riyadh talks and all the Donald Trump tweets, I haven’t seen Ukrainians that determined and united for quite some time, for probably the last year. There is a moment—the feeling—very similar to what Ukrainians had in February 2022, when the whole world was saying Kyiv would fall within three days, and Ukrainians were like, “No, we will fight. No, we will fight. We’ll make a cause. We’ll prove we will fight.” This moment feels like the ones we need to prove we can survive whatsoever.

But also it’s very important for Ukraine at the same time not to throw Donald Trump and the new American administration into the Russian hands because it would be too much of a present just to give up upon the U.S. support and just by default, say that, “Okay, they are there, somewhere with Putin.” I don’t believe that the U.S. would ever really fight on the Russian side. So I really think we also shouldn’t push them too hard into disregarding what our emotions are because it would be just a very good present to the Russian leadership.

HUGH EAKIN

Nataliya, with that, I think we should wrap it up, and please read Nataliya’s pieces—not only her current essay, but her previous essays in Foreign Affairs, many of which are as relevant today as when they were written. Thank you.

NATALIYA GUMENYUK

Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.