Imagining Ukrainian end-of-war scenarios
With so much uncertainty in the air, we profiled three people, each representing how segments of Ukrainian society would react under three distinct scenarios ending the war.
Editor’s Note: When people ask how I am, I tell them that I feel fatigue down to the bone marrow. I know much of our team feels the same way. But we also understand we have no right to take a break when these world-changing events are happening.
As has become a familiar phrase in Kyiv: “It’s a sin to complain.”
Donald Trump has chosen a confusing national security team, filled with internal contradictions on Ukraine policy, from supportive to hostile.
Incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has said he wants to “tak[e] the handcuffs” off by allowing Ukrainians to use U.S. weapons for long-range strikes, and enforcing U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Trump’s CIA Director nominee, John Ratcliffe, has claimed that the Biden administration’s strategy in the war has been “Ukraine first, Ohio last," accusing the Biden White House of promoting "welfare and Ukraine pensions" over American interests.
The president-elect’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, opposes U.S. aid to Ukraine. When the 2022 full-scale invasion began, she encouraged the parties to show "aloha" and said the Biden administration could have avoided the war just by acknowledging Russia's "legitimate security concerns."
Donald Trump’s choice to head the Pentagon is Pete Hegseth, who has expressed skepticism of NATO, and warned against “American intervention” in Ukraine pushing Russia into nuclear war with the U.S.
But what is clear is that the Trump administration seeks to pressure both sides to the negotiating table. Fox News reported that Trump will "soon" appoint a peace envoy to help diplomatic discussions over an end to the war.
In the midst of this uncertain time, The Counteroffensive is using our trademark human interest reporting style to show how three different scenarios would be received by the Ukrainian population.
For today's issue, we profile three characters: a military veteran, a former minister of foreign affairs, and a Crimean refugee.
Scenario 1: A Ukrainian frontline collapse or humiliating armistice
A truce doesn’t mean that the hate fades, or the violence stops.
What has come from the war is a decades-long hatred that will not disappear anytime soon.
Many soldiers who have deep experience of war on the frontline believe that true peace cannot involve the ceding of Ukrainian territory.
Vitalii Lyashok, a veteran of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, says he and his comrades will fight to the last even if Ukraine surrenders.
“The problem is that Russia needs not only Crimea and Donbas. We saw how it tried to capture Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhya. It needs the entire Ukraine,” Vitalii said.
Lyashok joined the armed forces in 2014 and took part in the fighting near the Donetsk airport. His son, Myroslav, joined the Azov battalion at the same time. In February 2022, they both took part in the battles near Bakhmut and Lyman in Donetsk Oblast.
In November 2023, Myroslav was killed, and Vitalii decided to leave the army because his health was severely affected by the death of his son. In Ukraine a person can be discharged from the army if a close relative dies in the war.
“The difficulty of the current situation is in the fact that a lot of motivated Ukrainians who fought voluntarily from the first days of the full-scale invasion have died,” explained Vitalii.
Corruption scandals and the lack of punishment for corrupt officials also have a negative impact on the morale of both military and civilians, he explained.
If nothing is done to solve these problems, there may be significant losses of territory in the East, as happened to Vuhledar and Selidove recently, Vitalii believes.
But even if Russia advances deeper into Ukraine, or Ukraine has to agree to a humiliating outcome, the war will not end, Vitalii noted.
“[There] will be resistance to the last Ukrainian patriot that will last for years,” he said.
After World War II, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a Ukrainian nationalist partisan organization, resisted Soviet rule in western Ukraine until the 1960s. They hid from the Soviets mostly in the forests, which also allowed them to launch unexpected attacks. Just as they did back then, Vitalii believes, many units will not agree to lay down their arms.
After the loss of their loved ones, many Ukrainians, including Vitalii, find that thoughts of vengeance overcomes the fear of death.
For them, there are only two ways to end this war: victory or death.
“If we run out of drones or ammunition, Ukrainians will take knives and stab the enemy,” he said.
Scenario 2: Ukraine reclaims most or all its territory
Lia Motrechko hasn’t seen her grandparents in eight years. Because of their old age, they were unable to flee Crimea with Lia and her parents in 2014, and now it is impossible to visit.
Lia still hopes that one day they will be reunited, when she can move back home. But for that to happen, Ukraine cannot give up any territorial claims.
“The war started in Crimea, and it must end in Crimea, with its de-occupation,” Lia said.
In the summer of 2014, Lia and her parents moved to Kherson in the south of Ukraine. She had never left Crimea before, so it was a difficult decision, as she felt she would never return.
In 2018, the family moved to Spain, fearing further violence. Her mother, a Crimean Tatar, and father, a Ukrainian, knew even then that Russia’s aggression would continue.
Since the beginning of the war with Russia in 2014, hundreds of thousands of people like Lia have left Ukraine — and after 2022, this number was estimated at almost five million.
One-third of Ukrainians support ceding territory in favor of peace with Russia, as of earlier this year. But others such as Lia feel that giving up their homelands, as Donald Trump called for during his election campaign, would have devastating consequences.
Lia, who is now 22, has been living in Seville, Spain for six years, where she runs her own English-language blog about Crimea and Crimean Tatars.
“In Crimea, Crimean Tatars make up 12% of the total population, and 70% of all political prisoners are Crimean Tatars. They are often arrested because of their active work in support of Ukraine,” said Lia.
A video from Lia's Instagram showing how Crimean Tatars returned to Crimea in the 90s after being deported in 1944:
Lia is upset by discussions about possible peace talks that involve Ukraine ceding its territories, including Crimea. In that case Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars will be denied a chance to live freely again on their home lands.
“What I miss most now is all the emotions that we had during our gatherings. There were Crimean Tatar songs and dances,” she said.
Lia considers the most important task after returning home to be the de-Russification of the peninsula. It would include the restoration of Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian toponyms – the historical names of cities returning, replacing Soviet and Russian names.
Lia sees the eviction of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who illegally moved to Crimea after the annexation as one of the hardest tasks in this scenario.
Scenario 3: A messy, negotiated outcome with Ukraine ceding some of its territories
Even if we imagine an agreement to end the war with Russia on the condition of ceding territories by Ukraine, it will not stop Russian expansionism in the future, points out Ukraine’s former foreign affairs minister from 2007 to 2009, Volodymyr Ohryzko.
Moreover, it will show that any country can ignore international law and seize territory with impunity.
A similar situation occurred in 2022, when Russia prepared for an even larger war and attacked Ukraine, even though peace talks had been underway since 2014.
Ohryzko argues that two conditions need to be met to come close to a diplomatic solution to the Russian-Ukrainian war. The first of these is the maximum support from the Western partners in terms of weapons. The second important condition is financial support for Ukraine from the IMF, as the Ukrainian economy is in a critical state due to the war.
International guarantees are also needed, including the continuation of sanctions against Russia until its democratization and Ukraine's membership in NATO, or at least clear security guarantees from the nuclear-armed NATO members.
And if these conditions are met, Ukraine could sign an agreement with Russia that has a viable chance for peace, he said.
But at the moment, the West is showing rather negative trends in fulfilling these points, as Ukraine has not received permission to use Western weapons on Russian territory yet.
“The minds of Western politicians are still dominated by fear of Russia, not by sober calculation,” Ohryzko said.
Although Ukraine’s Kursk operation dispelled the myth of Russia's invincibility and the so-called “red lines” that Putin constantly threatens, it had little impact on the position of Western leaders, the former diplomat said.
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NEWS OF THE DAY:
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
GERMANY FORBIDS PORTS ACCEPTING RUSSIAN GAS: Germany's Ministry of Economy has instructed state-owned import terminals, including Deutsche Energy Terminal, to refuse to supply liquefied natural gas from Russia, FT reports.
Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Germany was the largest importer of Russian gas in Europe. When Putin cut off gas supplies through pipelines, the Scholz government built a series of terminals to import LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) by sea.
Germany has not imported Russian gas since the beginning of the invasion and this indication is an indication that this policy will continue. Despite US and UK sanctions on Russian LNG, the EU continues to import it: 20 percent of Europe’s LNG supplies come from Russia. The countries that import it the most are France, Spain and Belgium.
UKRAINE USING ISRAEL RADARS: Israel has provided Ukraine with the means to create an early warning system for air attacks, RBC-Ukraine reports, citing a statement by Ukraine's Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk. According to the ambassador, Israeli three-dimensional radars are already being used by the military in Ukraine.
POLAND ESTABLISHED S. KOREAN TANKS NEAR ITS BORDER WITH RUSSIA: Poland has deployed South Korean K2 tanks a few kilometers from the Kaliningrad region of Russia, Major Magdalena Koscinska, spokeswoman for the 16th Pomeranian Mechanized Division, tells “European Truth” with reference to Polish media.
The K2 Black Panther tanks are known for their active defense system - they effectively counter missile and anti-tank attacks. In August 2022, Poland signed a contract to purchase the first 180 tanks.
DOG OF WAR:
Today’s dog of war is this pup admiring Dnipro river, who Nastia spotted earlier this autumn, while taking a walk.
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Nastia
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Tulsi gabbard is an absolute disgrace and shouldn’t be allowed near any actual decision making processes. Also I’m from Ohio and I say Ukraine first! These cowards and sycophants are an embarrassment at best and modern Neville Chamberlains at theworst.
How's this for irony? Germany is supporting Ukraine in it's fight for democracy and freedom. The president elect of the U.S. supports Russia in it's attack on Ukraine.