No Way But Down

In what feels like another life, Anton Yaremchuk was a cinematographer making movies. But since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, he has raced from town to town in eastern Ukraine, helping people escape the ever-changing front lines of a war no one here wanted.

“Bringing people to safety is essential,” he said, convinced that it is important to “leave no one behind” as the logo reads on his high-vis jacket.

A few weeks ahead of the third anniversary of the invasion that began on Feb. 24, 2022, Yaremchuk and his colleagues at his small non-profit, BASE UA, were in Pokrovsk, in the east, trying to save some of its remaining residents. The Russian army was only about a mile from the town.

Over the past few weeks, the industrial city and key supply hub has been bombarded daily. Its streets are deserted. Its houses are boarded up. There is no gas, no water, no electricity, and no authorities in the town anymore. There is little sign of life except for a few elderly inhabitants who wait for rescue or refuse to leave because everything they have ever known and everything that has ever mattered to them is in this town, which is slowly being eviscerated.

“I have to stay,” one elderly woman told Yaremchuk, in a report by the BBC. “My son has died, and I need to be near his grave.”

“I don’t think he would want this,” Yaremchuk replied, trying to convince her to leave.

A world away, the powers that be, Russia and the United States, are deciding the fate of this bowed but unbroken country. After shocking the Ukrainians – and Europeans – by bluntly telling both parties that they would not be invited to the negotiating table to discuss peace, US President Donald Trump blamed the Ukrainians for starting this war and labeled the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a “dictator” while calling for elections.

The Ukrainian elections were due to be held in 2024 but were postponed because of the war, a decision even Zelenskyy’s opponents agreed with. Analysts say that holding a fair election is impossible with the Russians occupying 20 percent of the country and millions escaping abroad.

Over the past few weeks, US pressure on Ukraine has risen. Earlier this month, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv. He had a contract in hand for the Ukrainians to sign, which would turn over the rights to their mineral wealth, a maneuver the Economist called, “shakedown diplomacy.” Zelenskyy declined to sign because of a lack of security guarantees, saying, “I cannot sell our state.”

Meanwhile, last week, Reuters reported that the US is refusing, for the first time, to co-sponsor a draft United Nations resolution that backs Kyiv’s territorial integrity and condemns Russian aggression. Instead, the US wants it replaced with a “toned-down” version that many believe is overly sympathetic to the Russians.

The Ukrainians, who have lost more than 12,500 civilians and an estimated 80,000 soldiers since early 2022, and have seen almost seven million more of their compatriots displaced outside of the country and another four million people displaced inside, are bewildered and scared by such US statements and actions, the abrupt about-face of their biggest ally. Many say they feel betrayed.

Some Ukrainians like Zelenskyy believe that Trump has fallen for Russian misinformation. Others suggest he’s playing hardball to get both sides to the table to end the war. Regardless, everyone agrees the rules of the game have changed in the past month.

A year ago, the Ukrainians thought they could hold out for a peace deal that would see Russia return their territory – including Crimea which Russia took in 2014. In exchange for peace, Russia wants the territory it has captured plus guarantees that Ukraine won’t join NATO and all Western sanctions lifted. It said it was acceptable that Ukraine joined the European Union.

But now, Ukraine’s bargaining power is weak. Its forces are struggling to hold back Russian advances in the east, where they are vastly outnumbered. Ukraine’s chances of retaking occupied Russian territory are slim even as they hold onto Russian territory – they captured a portion of the Kursk region in western Russia last summer.

The Russians are in a stronger position, but just barely. The war of attrition can’t be decisively won by Russia either, analysts say, but they could easily last another year or two in spite of experiencing tremendous losses, both in lives and in weapons – an estimated 200,000 soldiers fighting for Russia have been killed since 2022. Sanctions continue to bite and inflation is sky-high while exports are falling. Almost a million Russians have fled the country, to avoid conscription or a crackdown on dissent by the government.

In regions close to the Ukraine border such as Belgorod, or in Buryatia, one of the poorest parts of Siberia, the economy is booming because of the conflict even as the war is felt mainly in terms of losses – many of the soldiers fighting the war hail from these areas.

Still, most Russians overall say they don’t really feel the war much. Dmitry, a father of two in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, told RFE/RL that it’s been a “nuisance” in his life more than anything else.

The IT professional said he’s seen business revenue hurt by Western sanctions, prices for some goods like cars surge, and frets over how his son is exposed to the government’s “dangerous nationalistic propaganda” at school. But on the whole, life hasn’t changed that much since 2022, he says.

“Things are difficult because of sanctions as Russian software just isn’t as good as US technology,” he said.” But I have enough money to cover expenses – except for a new car, (they) are now very expensive (and increasingly Chinese).”

On the other side of the border, meanwhile, Ukrainians are tired. Tens of thousands of soldiers have deserted, and many are on trial for doing so. The economy is struggling. Its energy infrastructure, repeatedly hit by Russia, is unreliable now. And the graveyards continue to grow.

No one in Ukraine talks about victory anymore as they did a year ago. Some believe that they can’t give in to Russia or it would betray all those who died in this war. But others now say there has been too much death and destruction and it is time for it to stop.

“Of course, Ukraine would want to recapture all land it lost,” Joanna Hosa of the European Council on Foreign Relations told CNN. “However, after three years of this exhausting war, recapturing all land is nowhere in sight. With a heavy heart, Ukrainians are slowly coming to accept this.”

However, Ukrainians worry now that they may lose their country. That’s because no one here believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will stop at having only 20 percent of their territory.

“We need peace,” said a senior Ukrainian official. “(But) … a peace that doesn’t finish us off at the same time.”