After four years leading his country in war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is very frustrated.
Russia may have been thwarted in its immediate bid to sweep aside the Ukrainian president and swallow its neighbor whole. But after months of U.S.-led negotiations, and as the conflict enters its fifth year Tuesday, there has been little clear progress on key sticking points in peace talks.
Now, Zelenskyy’s defiance of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion has taken on an increasingly exasperated, if not desperate, tone.
“I don’t need historical s--- to end this war and move to diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X last week. It was an apparent reference to Vladimir Medinsky, the lead Russian negotiator whose historical views mirror those of President Vladimir Putin — that much of Ukraine has always been part of Russia, rather than an independent state.
The Kremlin has signaled not just that it won’t ease its hard-line demands, but also that it remains determined to assert its historical justification for the war.
While sharp public statements have always been part of Zelenskyy’s political brand, the Ukrainian leader’s growing public anger with the peace process is palpable, Kyiv-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said.
“His temperament calls for faster solutions. That’s where impatience and irritation come from,” Fesenko said.
Addressing the nation on the eve of the anniversary, Zelenskyy urged President Donald Trump to visit Ukraine and said any peace talks must not “nullify” years of sacrifice by his people. “Putin has not achieved his goals,” Zelenskyy added. “He has not broken Ukrainians.”
The Kremlin concurred, in a way.
The goals of Putin's invasion have not been fully achieved, spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday, so the special military operation, as the Kremlin calls its war, will continue.
After four grueling years, Russia controls 20% of Ukrainian territory, chipping away at its eastern frontiers in a war of attrition that has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s fight against Nazi Germany.
Despite Ukraine’s recent gains, neither side has launched a major offensive in months. And the battlefield toll on both sides is approaching nearly half a million dead and 1.5 million wounded or missing, according to a staggering estimate released last month.
Civilian casualties are also growing: Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since the invasion and nearly 6 million Ukrainians still live abroad as war refugees, according to the United Nations.
For those who choose to stay behind, conditions inside the war-ravaged country are increasingly intolerable. The power grids of Ukrainian towns and cities are bombarded nearly daily, leaving millions to freeze in the dark during one of the harshest winters in years.
Nataliia Sukhar left her home in northeastern Kharkiv after the war broke out, catching a 15-hour train to Berlin with her then 5-year-old son, Gleb, on a journey followed by NBC News. She returned to Ukraine in August 2022 and now lives with her family in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
“I returned because we felt back then that we belonged in Ukraine,” Sukhar, 36, said in a series of messages on Telegram. “Now that fervor has significantly faded.”
Sukhar, who gave birth to another son just months ago, said the war dragging on has left Ukraine trapped. “The choice is either to surrender a third of Ukraine and allow the aggressor to advance even further into the country or to continue the war at the very limit of our human and economic resources,” she added.
Putin has made it clear that he wants the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, despite Kyiv still holding territory there. Ukraine has rejected the idea, creating a stalemate that persists even as the war takes its toll on both countries.
While Russians have shown some signs of mounting disquiet over the effects of the Kremlin’s war, authorities have sought to showcase the state’s determination to see the fight to its conclusion.
Marking “Defender of the Fatherland Day” in Russia on Monday, just a day before the fourth anniversary, Putin reiterated his justification for invading Ukraine as he handed out state awards to troops, saying that Russia was “fighting for its future.”
Putin's hard-line view of the war was evident at a patriotic expo in snowy Moscow last week, organized by a major military history organization that is chaired by Medinsky and featured stands with photos of Russian soldiers who died fighting in Ukraine.
“I believe we must not compromise,” Natalya Belyaeva told NBC News when asked if Russia should ease its demands to reach a peace deal. Her son Dmitry Belyaeva, a senior lieutenant in the Russian military, was killed in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region in fall 2022 while commanding an anti-aircraft missile platoon. He was posthumously granted the Hero of the Russian Federation award by Putin.
“Our guys didn’t shed blood for us to give up or concede something. We must fight to the end,” said Belyaeva, 53, adding that she expects nothing short of “capitulation” from Ukraine.
Kyiv is also facing immense pressure from Trump to reach a deal.
“Ukraine better come to the table fast,” Trump said ahead of the latest round of talks in Geneva last week.
Initially presented with a U.S. proposal heavily favoring Russia, Ukraine and its European backers have negotiated a more favorable framework. Zelenskyy has since accused Washington of focusing too much on the need for Ukrainian concessions to end the war.
The former comedian, long since transformed into a wartime talisman globally, is also battling to keep hold of domestic favor.
An election originally scheduled for early 2024 was postponed by the ongoing martial law, but Trump has been pushing for Kyiv to hold a vote as soon as possible. The re-emergence of his former chief military commander and the separate news of a massive corruption scandal implicating close associates have further weakened Zelenskyy’s standing at home.
Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, widely viewed as a serious rival to Zelenskyy in any vote, accused the president of targeting him and undermining the military’s counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, which had the potential to change the course of the war. The anniversary has also fueled some relitigation of the buildup to the war and Zelenskyy’s dismissal of U.S. warnings, which proved to be correct.
Now, Zelenskyy is faced with ultimatums from Moscow and Washington to give up Ukrainian land, Fesenko said — something the Ukrainian leader is unlikely accept in the face of domestic public opinion.
“He is ready for the war that will continue,” he added.
