Throughout 2025, our view of Russia’s war in Ukraine was shaped by the stops and starts – as well as the ultimatums – issued by US President Donald Trump’s administration: a rare-earth minerals agreement, a summit in Alaska, a 28-point plan favoring Russia and its amended versions, demands for an immediate presidential election in Ukraine and now negotiations over the territories of the Donbas. Each episode is presented, in the moment, as a turning point, only to become obsolete the next instant.

This focus on fleeting developments stands in stark contrast to the relentless continuity of attacks, bombings, destruction and lives lost daily. The drawn-out quality of this war – intolerable in its terrible prolongation – is something we have grown weary of, as we can no longer bear to pay attention. Now, it is reduced to brief news items, each one resembling the last, and if anything is considered newsworthy, it is no longer the war itself, but the political theater in which Ukraine is debated – with Ukraine itself struggling to be heard. We are losing our ability to accurately perceive this war’s extended timespan, just as we are losing sight of what this war even means.

What Ukrainians tell me during my fieldwork is very different. These men and women, defending their country, whether on the front lines or from behind, generally brush aside my questions about diplomatic negotiations with exasperation. Some do respond.

“To be honest, we don’t really pay attention to those stories,” a fighter told me this winter. “They distract us from our work, and we fully understand that, even if these negotiations take place and achieve something, they will not make the threat hanging over our country, our State, disappear. We will simply need to prepare for the inevitability that Russia, as it always has, will break all the promises it made at some point.”

What is negotiated in Anchorage [Alaska] or in Geneva, I am repeatedly told in Ukraine, is not peace, but a change in the intensity of a war that is far from over. But before thinking about peace, it is crucial to focus on enduring the next phase of the war, which is yet to come.

You have 61.8% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.