As talks take place elsewhere over the fate of Ukraine, the feeling on the streets of Kyiv is that things could get much better – or much worse.
“The uncertainty is terrible,” says Lesia Pyniak (34), a researcher for The Reckoning Project, an international team of journalists and lawyers who document and publicise Russian war crimes in Ukraine with a view to prosecution.
Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, expressed the uncertainty in a post on the Telegram messenger service. “How should we understand this?” Yermak wrote, referring to a viral video posted by Russians in the aftermath of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s triumphal visit to Alaska.
It appears to show an American-made M113 armoured personnel carrier, captured from Ukrainian forces near Zaporizhzhia, flying the US and Russian flags. The message, in the eyes of some Ukrainians, seemed to be: Up yours, Ukraine – the US is our ally now.
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Russia was “using symbols of the United States of America in their terrorist war,” Yermak wrote. “Total audacity.”
I discussed the confusion with Pyniak and 18-year-old Ivan Sarancha, who ran away from his politically divided family in the Russian-occupied “Luhansk People’s Republic”. He now works for Save Ukraine, the NGO that tries to rescue deported Ukrainian children from Russia.
A settlement – which may or may not happen – is on everyone’s mind. Ukrainians speculate endlessly on what could be gained or lost.
Sarancha predicts the Dnipro river will continue to mark the border between Russian and Ukrainian-held parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
He thinks Russia will keep Crimea and take all of Luhansk, most of which it controls already.
[ Eastern Ukraine mapped: Vladimir Putin demands territory to end Russia’s warOpens in new window ]
Donetsk is the sticking point, since Putin wants the entire oblast but controls only three-quarters of it. There could be small Ukrainian withdrawals to smooth the jagged front line, but Ukraine is unlikely to relinquish control of the big towns of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
Asked how he reads US president Donald Trump’s erratic behaviour, Sarancha replies: “I think Trump’s love for Putin is unhealthy, but I don’t think he works for him. It’s hard to explain. Maybe Trump is trying to be impartial.”
And the other protagonists? Is Zelenskiy doing a good job? “I think he is doing okay, all things considered,” Sarancha says. “I think the scandal in the Oval Office [last February] helped Ukraine. At least it showed Ukraine will not capitulate and will not agree to the conditions they try to impose.
“I think Zelenskiy’s future will depend on what happens and how it works out,” says Pyniak, the human rights researcher. “It is changing very fast. He’s on the knife edge.”
And the Europeans? “I think they are very soft and indecisive, not serious,” was Sarancha’s harsh judgment. “They relaxed after the second World War and stopped worrying about defence.
“Things would be a lot better if the US and Europe had supported us more with weapons,” Pyniak adds. “We could liberate Ukraine, go back to our 1991 borders. A frozen conflict is just a postponed war.”
While the residents of Kyiv theorise, Zelenskiy may shows signs he might have got the measure of Donald Trump. As reported by the Financial Times, Ukraine has offered to buy $100 billion worth of US weapons, with European money, to finance the security guarantees which must be part of any agreement.
