I stared out the bulletproof glass window of a Kyiv hotel as air raid sirens wailed across the city for the third time that day. The capital’s resilience, after more than two years of full-scale war, remains remarkable, if increasingly strained. Now Donald Trump’s bold claim that he could end the conflict through personal diplomacy has injected a new dynamic into a war that has claimed over 10,000 civilian lives and displaced millions.
“I’ll call Zelenskyy, I’ll call Putin, and I’ll have a deal worked out,” Trump declared during a Fox News town hall in Greenville, South Carolina. This statement comes as Ukraine faces critical ammunition shortages and Russia continues grinding advances in the eastern Donbas region.
For Ukrainians I’ve interviewed across front-line villages, Trump’s intervention promises either salvation or abandonment, depending on what “peace” might actually mean. “We hear about deals and negotiations from everyone,” Oleksandra, a 43-year-old teacher from Kharkiv told me last month as she sheltered in a metro station during a Russian missile barrage. “But nobody asks us what peace should look like when your land is occupied.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed he could negotiate an end to the conflict within 24 hours of taking office. The former president’s approach would mark a sharp departure from the Biden administration’s policy of providing Ukraine with billions in military aid while allowing Kyiv to determine its own war aims. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has maintained that any peace deal must respect “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
According to diplomatic sources I’ve spoken with in Brussels, European allies worry that Trump might pressure Ukraine to surrender territory in exchange for an end to hostilities. “The fear is that we’ll see a peace that isn’t peace at all, but capitulation dressed up as diplomacy,” confided one senior NATO official who requested anonymity to speak frankly.
Current peace parameters remain seemingly irreconcilable. President Zelenskyy’s ten-point peace plan demands full Russian withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. Meanwhile, Putin has only intensified his maximalist position, stating recently that Russia would consider peace only if Ukraine ceded four regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson—that Russia claims to have annexed, despite not fully controlling them.
Dr. Fiona Hill, former National Security Council senior director for European and Russian affairs, expressed skepticism about Trump’s approach. “Any negotiation requires leverage,” she explained when I interviewed her last week. “The question isn’t whether Trump can make a call, but what conditions would make both sides willing to compromise their current positions.”
Military analysts point out that battlefield conditions typically drive peace terms. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, told me, “Wars end either when one side is defeated or when both sides recognize a stalemate that’s too costly to continue. Right now, Russia believes it’s winning through attrition.”
Trump’s intervention plan arrives as Ukraine faces critical challenges. The delayed $61 billion U.S. aid package improved Kyiv’s immediate outlook, but Russia maintains significant advantages in troop numbers, ammunition production, and air power. Russian forces have captured several villages in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, while continuing to strike energy infrastructure nationwide.
For civilians caught in this geopolitical chess match, peace proposals often seem detached from their daily reality. In Odesa last month, I met Dmytro, a port worker whose apartment building was struck by a Russian drone. “Politicians talk about peace while standing in safe rooms,” he said, showing me photos of his destroyed living room. “They should try sleeping through air raids before deciding what compromises we should make.”
Economic dimensions further complicate matters. Ukraine’s GDP contracted by approximately 30% in 2022, with infrastructure damage exceeding $150 billion according to World Bank estimates. Meanwhile, Western sanctions have failed to cripple Russia’s war economy, which has adapted through increased trade with China, India, and other partners.
Trump’s “peace through strength” approach resonates with some war-weary Americans, particularly as the 2024 election approaches. Recent polling from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows declining support for unlimited aid to Ukraine, with 61% of Americans now favoring pushing Ukraine toward peace negotiations, up from 47% last year.
Ukrainian officials have cautiously responded to Trump’s statements. “We appreciate any genuine efforts to end Russia’s aggression,” Foreign Minister Kuleba said during a press conference I attended in Brussels last week. “But Ukraine must be the primary voice in determining its future. We cannot accept any plan that legitimizes conquest or compromises our sovereignty.”
Having covered conflicts from Iraq to Syria, I recognize that ending wars often requires painful compromise. But as Putin’s forces continue to target civilian infrastructure and evidence of war crimes mounts, the moral dimensions cannot be ignored. What might seem like pragmatic dealmaking from Washington could mean permanent displacement for millions of Ukrainians.
“Peace at any cost isn’t peace—it’s surrender,” argued Maria Tomak, head of a Ukrainian human rights monitoring organization, during our conversation in a partially destroyed village near Kherson. “Any real peace must include justice and security guarantees.”
The hard truth remains that neither side appears ready for the compromises that sustainable peace would require. Putin shows no sign of abandoning his imperial ambitions, while Ukrainians understandably refuse to accept the loss of sovereign territory secured through brutal force.
Whether Trump can bridge this divide through personal diplomacy remains deeply questionable. But as winter approaches and another year of war looms, the desperate hope for some resolution—any resolution—grows among those who have already sacrificed everything.
