As Trump returns to the White House, and Putin’s forces advance – what next for Ukraine in 2025?
After nearly three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the future of the country’s fight against Vladimir Putin’s forces is more uncertain than ever.
Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in the US presidential race, off the back of promises to end the war in Eastern Europe in 24 hours – seemingly even if that means forcing Kyiv to cede territory to Russia – appears to spell the end of the West’s long-held policy of helping Ukraine to defeat Putin entirely. Negotiations with Russia, after years of silence, are back on the agenda.
This is causing significant stress in Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. As Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian opposition leader, puts it: “The world needs to understand how crucial it is not to end the war on any idea of negotiating with Russia.”
Others in Kyiv are cautiously hopeful that Trump will quickly realise Putin will not be persuaded to stop his invasion, and that the incoming US president will then respond by substantially increasing American support for Ukraine beyond what the previous administration, under Joe Biden, has been willing to countenance.
Former US and British officials have discussed with The Independent how negotiations could play out, but in the meantime, Trump’s great solution to “end the killing” remains a mystery to everyone – potentially even the president-elect himself.
While the world waits to see what transpires, Ukraine is already facing an array of problems.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that the country’s military currently lacks the strength to retake the nearly 20 per cent of Ukraine occupied by Russia in the south and east.
Some of that could be blamed on the US and Europe’s tentative approach to supporting Ukraine – one that has seen plenty of rhetoric, but has been tempered by a desire to avoid pushing Russia into escalating the war. The use of Western-supplied missiles deep inside Russia is one big decision that has come in recent months, but Zelensky has called for more weapons, ammunition and air-defence systems, and for them to arrive quickly.
The Ukrainian military also has its own issues, centred on difficulties with recruitment, retention and rotation as well as communication between its generals and the fighting army.
Simply put: Ukraine needs more soldiers, better training of new troops, and a more realistic expectation of their capabilities from Kyiv’s senior military staff.
Sources suggest that Kyiv needs to recruit 160,000 soldiers to staff the current level of brigades to an 85 per cent staffing rate, according to Emil Kastehelmi, who tracks the war in Ukraine for the Black Bird Group, a war monitor.
The US is reportedly trying to convince Zelensky to lower the age of conscription from 25 to 18 to address this issue, a move that the Ukrainian president is resisting in the hope of preserving the country’s future generations.
But Kastehelmi says the situation is more complicated.
Conditions on the front are difficult, with many soldiers fighting for years without rotation and with limited weaponry, in the face of a slow but steady advance by Russian forces – particularly in the east of Ukraine. That acts as a significant disincentive to signing up.
