After nearly three years spent in combat fatigues, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will no doubt find it strange the first day he sheds the wardrobe of war to prepare for peace. But that moment may be fast approaching. US president-elect Donald Trump has made no secret of his intention to end the Ukraine war “within a day”. While that is perhaps an excessively ambitious time frame even for a self-styled “dealmaker” like Trump, Zelensky commented last month that “the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House”. Meanwhile, European governments are privately accepting the prospect of negotiations.
Any deal is likely to involve significant territorial concessions on the part of Kyiv. One template under consideration would involve freezing the conflict along current frontlines, thereby ceding to Russia up to 18 per cent of antebellum Ukrainian territory. Russian president Vladimir Putin is believed to be open to the idea, and even Ukraine’s allies are speaking more freely about the prospect of Russia retaining its captured territory, at least for now. In September, Czech president Petr Pavel drew a defensive response from Kyiv after suggesting that “the most probable outcome of the war will be that a part of Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation, temporarily” – a “temporarily” he admitted may translate, practically, into years.
While the Ukrainian government publicly rejected “middle ground solutions” and demanded the “withdrawal of Russian occupying forces from the sovereign territory of Ukraine” in response to Pavel’s comments, it has expressed greater pragmatism behind closed doors. Western diplomats reported that, during September’s UN General Assembly, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha “struck a more pragmatic tone on the possibility of land-for-security negotiations than his predecessor”. Zelensky also emphasised in November that Kyiv “cannot legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian”, implying an acceptance of Moscow retaining de facto, if not de jure, control.
That is not to say that such realism has trickled down into Ukrainian civic society. Polling in October by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 32 per cent were prepared to give up some territory to end the conflict and preserve the rest of the country’s independence. Although an increase from the 14 per cent who expressed such views a year before, it is still a minority, with 58 per cent opposing any form of territorial concessions, even if that means prolonging the war and threatening Ukraine’s independence. Failure to gain the support of the Ukrainian people for a negotiated settlement could have disastrous effects for the country’s long-term stability. Political rivals are undoubtedly waiting in the wings, ready to criticise any concessions Zelensky makes – or indeed foster their own political ambitions through patriotic calls to keep fighting.
Politicians are not the only ones who could reject any compromise. In September, Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko claimed “the far right in Ukraine is growing” and “there will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation”. Beyond fringe groups, Zelensky is likely to face widespread public demonstrations. Masha Hedberg, assistant professor of political science at Colgate University, told me that “any perceived compromise – especially territorial concessions – could indeed spark protests or fracture the political landscape”. She points to how, in 2019, Zelensky’s acceptance of the Steinmeier Formula, permitting elections in the Russian separatist-held Luhansk and Donetsk regions, sparked immediate backlash from protestors and opposition parties. “Zelensky would likely face similar resistance today,” she said, “but their opposition to compromise has been magnified by the war’s death and devastation. Can social instability be entirely avoided? Probably not – too many people have suffered for that to be realistic.” an independent Ukraine plagued by civil warfare between radicalised militias is hardly a victory.
Such instability would in turn be fuelled by Moscow through its proxies and cyber warfare. So what can Ukraine’s beleaguered president do to mitigate such an outcome and build the foundations for a peacetime – and peaceful – consensus? One option is simply to blame America. While Trump reportedly used his initial conversations with Zelensky to reassure him that Ukraine will not be abandoned, the new US president may still act upon internal proposals to threaten cutting off weapons supplies in order to force Kyiv to the negotiating table. In such a case, Zelensky would be able to tell his people honestly that there was no alternative, apparently laying the foundation now with warnings that Ukraine will “lose the war” if the US cuts funding. He may have already taken such an approach with his “Victory Plan”, an effort that US officials found so underwhelming that one wonders if Zelensky drafted it in such a way as to show that he really did try to win but the West let him down.
An alternative is slick PR. Ex-comedy star Zelensky, ever the showman, has rallied his people to fight; he could equally rally them to lay down arms. Public messaging could focus on bringing soldiers home, giving the country breathing space for reconstruction and saving lives. At the end of November, Zelensky said that he would not waste thousands of Ukrainian lives to return Crimea. But this “would require exceptionally deft political handling,” Hedberg told me. “Zelensky would need to ensure that any concessions Ukraine makes are coupled with clear, tangible benefits – whether it’s robust security guarantees, substantial economic aid, or concessions from Russia. No one in Ukraine is going to see concessions as just.”
And what does this all mean for Zelensky’s own career? His maximalist approach, pledging to liberate all Ukrainian territory, inspired his people but now limits his options. He may decide to preserve his legacy as Ukraine’s wartime leader by stepping down immediately after negotiations and calling overdue elections, leaving office still in his camouflage gear. Whether the Ukrainian people would re-elect him after such a comedown anyway is questionable. And those comparisons to Churchill early in the war may have their own irony: another courageous wartime leadership rewarded by subsequent electoral defeat. There is also the impact on Zelensky’s own reputation to consider. “His political career is in trouble irrespective of what deal he cuts,” said Gerard Toal, professor of government and international affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. “Ukraine will not have won the victory he promised and he risks becoming a convenient scapegoat for those striving to reconcile themselves to an ugly peace.”
Perhaps one of the most arresting images of the entire conflict came at the very outset. Putin had expected a three-day operation, a decapitation strategy with Zelensky’s own head set to roll. He was thwarted by a Ukrainian president who filmed himself alongside his officials in Kyiv, defiantly reassuring his people: “We are all here.” But now, as the conflict seemingly moves towards a close, he must turn his thoughts from winning the war to winning the peace.
[See also: Europe’s Ukraine delusion]
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