Analysis: Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine faces its hardest winter as U.S.-brokered talks inch forward and Moscow hardens demands
Four years after Russia launched its full-scale assault by land, sea and air, Ukraine enters a fifth year of war under punishing pressure: nightly missile and drone attacks on power stations, a slow-moving battlefield that chews through men and machines, and a diplomatic track that shows glimmers of structure but scant substance.
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A U.S.-led initiative that began a year ago under President Donald Trump has nudged Kyiv and Moscow into a trilateral format, with American officials mediating and, for the first time, Russians and Ukrainians sitting in the same room. Sessions in Abu Dhabi at the end of January and earlier this month gave way to a third round in Geneva this week. A fourth is expected in early March.
The choreography suggests progress, but not momentum. Russia refuses a cease-fire while bombarding Ukrainian cities and power plants. And the return of Kremlin adviser and historian Vladimir Medinsky to lead Moscow’s delegation signals a harder line. Medinsky, who fronted three rounds in Istanbul last year and has questioned Ukraine’s very statehood in past writings, is a messenger as much as a negotiator: the Kremlin’s red lines are not softening.
At the center of the impasse is territory. President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the remaining slices of Donbas still under Kyiv’s control — roughly 30% of the region — effectively yielding the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk to Russia. That is untenable for Ukraine’s leadership and the public at large. After four years of sacrifice, trading land for paper guarantees would be a political, military and moral nonstarter in Kyiv.
Washington’s security assurances have yet to take on binding form. U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has described prospective guarantees as “the best anyone has ever seen,” but, for now, there is little detail to evaluate. In parallel, the Trump administration has sharply reduced U.S. military aid versus the levels provided in the first three years of the war under President Joe Biden, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute. European governments have stepped in to fill much of the gap, becoming the primary funders of Ukraine’s current and future defense needs.
Even so, Europe remains largely on the sidelines of the talks. European representatives were in Geneva this week, but not at the core of the process that now shapes Ukraine’s fate — a striking mismatch between who pays the bills and who steers the diplomacy.
On the battlefield, 2022’s armored thrusts have given way to a 1,000-kilometer front policed by swarms of reconnaissance and strike drones, dense artillery duels and infantry units advancing in small bites. The precision and persistence of drones have made massed maneuvers costly and rare. Russia clawed forward incrementally across Donbas last year, taking less than 1% of Ukrainian territory across 2025, even as Ukraine’s lines came under constant strain.
The human cost is staggering. Ukrainian and Western defense analysts estimate Russia has been losing 7,000 to 8,000 troops each week in recent months. A study published last month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated total killed, wounded or missing at about 1.2 million for Russia and 600,000 for Ukraine since the war’s start. The British Ministry of Defence, assessing current rates of advance, estimates it could take Russia another four years to capture the rest of Donbas. Inside Russia, where criticism has been muzzled, the scale of battlefield deaths is largely hidden from public view. Brief, small protests by soldiers’ wives that surfaced two years into the war have since faded; one group’s spokesperson was branded a “foreign agent.”
Meanwhile, this winter has been the hardest yet for Ukrainians. Systematic Russian strikes have battered energy infrastructure, plunging cities into rolling blackouts and stretching emergency services. The humanitarian toll compounds: millions fled in the first year — mostly women and children — and those who remain endure relentless air-raid nights and the grief of funerals that have become a daily ritual.
Diplomatically, the U.S.-brokered trilateral format has at least standardized the venue and cadence. The first day of this week’s Geneva talks lasted six hours; the second wrapped after two — a sign that beyond history lectures, complex issues are on the table. But the distance between positions is vast, especially on sovereignty and security.
Since December, the Trump administration has floated the creation of a free economic zone in the unoccupied parts of Donbas as a way to bridge the territorial gulf. In theory, it is a de-escalatory device; in practice, it raises more questions than it answers. Who would police it — and with what mandate? Moscow rejects any stabilization force drawn from NATO countries. Without a credible, enforceable presence and explicit, durable U.S. security guarantees, such a zone would be a vacuum inviting renewed Russian pressure, not a platform for peace.
The unevenness extends to leverage. For the Kremlin, compelling a Ukrainian withdrawal from the rest of Donbas across a negotiating table would be far preferable to four more grinding years of attrition to grab every trench and tree line. For Kyiv, conceding now would all but validate a strategy of coercion — missiles at night, demands by day — and risk emboldening further claims.
Against that backdrop, a cease-fire looks unlikely in the near term. Neither side sees advantage in stopping where they are. Russia appears intent on pressing ahead militarily while seeking to bank territorial concessions in talks. Ukraine, bruised but resilient, will not trade away core territory for pledges it does not trust.
What would it take to change the calculus? Any sustainable deal would have to lock in verifiable security guarantees for Ukraine, define a stabilization force that Moscow cannot veto by default, and bring Europe — now Ukraine’s principal defense underwriter — into the room as a genuine participant rather than a bystander. It would also have to address the energy war that has turned power grids into targets, with monitoring and penalties robust enough to make violations costly.
For now, the war’s center of gravity remains split: drones and artillery on the steppe, talking points in conference rooms. The Kremlin’s war aim — a weakened Ukraine, kept out of closer integration with the West and within Moscow’s shadow — has not changed. Nor has Ukraine’s resolve to remain sovereign on its own terms.
Ukrainians will hope that this is the year the war finally ends, but not at any cost. After four years of bombardment and resistance, the price of a false peace — one that rewards aggression and bakes in future conflict — would be too high to pay.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
