Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013<\/strong> Russian soldiers are terrified of Ukrainians, says Vasily, a burly officer limping uneasily on the cobblestones of Kyiv\u2019s Sophia Square, where Ukraine\u2019s largest Christmas tree stands<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve jumped into their trenches. They\u2019re really afraid of us,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n However, their fear does not mean that Kyiv can dictate the end-of-war terms as Russia has more servicemen, a stronger economy and a much bigger war chest \u2013 while Ukraine remains outmanned and outgunned, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I see the enemy at 800 metres, yell into the radio that I see a tank and give its coordinates, but they say, \u2018Hold on\u2019, I realise that we simply have nothing to strike it with,\u201d Vasily said, referring to the dire shortage of artillery shells while he was on the front line, before losing his left foot to a landmine in 2023.<\/p>\n Vassily remained in service and asked to withhold his last name in accordance with wartime regulations.<\/p>\n A four-star general thinks, however, that the only realistic achievement could be a \u201cpause\u201d in the war that will enter its fifth year in February 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cWith such an aggressive neighbour [as Russia], one can\u2019t hope for the full end of the war,\u201d Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine\u2019s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cThere won\u2019t be peace with Russia until we liberate the lands within Ukraine\u2019s [post-Soviet] 1991 borders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And if Moscow breaches the ceasefire pause, Kyiv would have to \u201cstop the Russians on the front line\u201d through a major bolstering of its military potential, he said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Kyiv would need to introduce universal and \u201cfair\u201d mobilisation without any exemptions, further boost domestic arms manufacturing, prioritise wartime needs in its economic decisions, and introduce stricter martial law, he said.<\/p>\n This year, Ukraine\u2019s military-industrial complex has provided up to 40 percent of what the armed forces need \u2013 a major boost from 15 to 20 percent in 2022.<\/p>\n Western allies provide the remaining 60 percent \u2013 and their further aid should be \u201cdecisive and fast\u201d, Romanenko said.<\/p>\n \u201cA window of opportunity\u201d to sign a peace deal may emerge in the second half of 2026 \u2013 if Russia does not succeed in breaching the front line and advancing rapidly and realises that Kyiv can stomach the war of attrition, another analyst says.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything will depend on the Kremlin\u2019s and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin\u2019s personal readiness to agree,\u201d Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n If the war\u2019s \u201cdead-end\u201d development becomes clear to Moscow next year, then there is hope to reach a peace deal by late 2025, he said.<\/p>\n And even if Putin agrees, it would take months to iron out and \u201cconnect\u201d the warring sides\u2019 versions of a peace deal, Fesenko said.<\/p>\n Ukraine may have to bend to the White House\u2019s demands to cede the Kyiv-controlled part of the Donetsk region, including several heavily fortified cities and towns, in exchange for Russia\u2019s withdrawal from three Ukrainian regions in the east and north \u2013 otherwise, the war will go on into 2027, he said.<\/p>\n There are bigger global factors that influence the war\u2019s possible end.<\/p>\n In 2026, the very definition of the collective West will change after Washington\u2019s withdrawal from the \u201cglobal policeman\u2019s\u201d role and the end of the \u201cWestern hegemony\u201d over the rest of the world, according to Kyiv-based analyst Ihar Tyshkevich.<\/p>\n A truly \u201cmulti-polar\u201d world is emerging as China boosts its global clout and domination in Asia, but still cannot fully challenge Washington\u2019s domination, he told a news conference in Kyiv on Monday.<\/p>\n This process will also trigger the \u201cerosion\u201d of international law that will influence Ukraine\u2019s position, he said.<\/p>\n For Ukraine, the worst-case development is a \u201cFinnish scenario,\u201d Tyshkevich said, referring to the 1939 Finnish-Soviet war, when Moscow tried to reconquer its tsarist-era province.<\/p>\n Even though Soviet forces suffered heavy losses that prompted Nazi Germany\u2019s invasion of the USSR in 1941, Moscow cut off a tenth of Finland\u2019s territory and forced Helsinki to recognise it.<\/p>\n In Ukraine\u2019s case, the \u201cFinnish scenario\u201d will mean Kyiv\u2019s recognition of Moscow-occupied regions as part of Russia.<\/p>\n Tyshkevych called another possible scenario \u201cGeorgian\u201d in reference to the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, when Moscow defeated smaller Georgian forces and \u201crecognised\u201d two breakaway regions \u2013 South Ossetia and Abkhazia \u2013 as \u201cindependent.\u201d<\/p>\n For Ukraine, the Georgian scenario means no control over occupied areas, but Kyiv\u2019s refusal to recognise them as Russia\u2019s.<\/p>\n A third, \u201cinterim\u201d scenario means the war is frozen and talks go on, he said.<\/p>\n There is only one scenario of the war\u2019s end, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany\u2019s Bremen University.<\/p>\n Ukraine would be \u201cpushed out\u201d of the remaining one-fifth of the southeastern Donetsk region \u2013 or would have to leave it voluntarily and recognise the loss of 90 percent of the neighbouring Zaporizhia region and 15 percent of Dnipropetrovsk that Russia currently controls, he said.<\/p>\n As Western pressure in the way of sanctions on Russia is \u201cweak\u201d, because too many nations are interested in bypassing them and trading with Moscow, the Kremlin has enough resources to continue the war for at least another two years, he said.<\/p>\n In turn, Ukraine has the resources to resist, but its \u201ccorrupt and cowardly\u201d government is not capable of mobilising enough manpower, he said.<\/p>\n As a result, Ukrainian forces slowly retreat in key directions as Western mediators cannot convince Russia to stop, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are, however, chances that Trump and his administration will either force Zelenskyy to leave Donetsk or to hold a wartime [presidential] vote and really change the team that rules Ukraine,\u201d Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, many average Ukrainians are growing wearier of the war, Russian shelling, blackouts and an economic downturn.<\/p>\n \u201cDonetsk was the source of our problems. Let Russia have it and pay tens of billions to restore it,\u201d Taras Tymoshchuk, a 63-year-old former economist, told Al Jazeera, referring to a Moscow-backed separatist uprising in Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk in 2014. \u201cI want to wake up because the birds are singing, not because I hear Russian drones and missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013 Russian soldiers are terrified of Ukrainians, says Vasily, a burly officer limping uneasily on the cobblestones of Kyiv\u2019s Sophia Square, where Ukraine\u2019s largest Christmas tree stands \u201cI\u2019ve jumped into their trenches. They\u2019re really afraid of us,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list However, their fear does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018One can\u2019t hope for the full end\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"Servicemen](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-12-17T094132Z_470996041_RC2MHIA3B2QK_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-DRONES-1766618256.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
![\"INTERACTIVE-WHO](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/INTERACTIVE-WHO-CONTROLS-WHAT-IN-UKRAINE-1766588523.png?quality=80\")
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-09-12T144905Z_2126354966_RC2AQGARCA5B_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-KHARKIV-AMPUTEES-1766621257.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80\")
\u2018Donetsk was the source of our problems\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"