FOR THREE years Ukraine has endured what was once unthinkable: an air and land assault on its capital; a bloody war of attrition; missiles; drones; glide bombs; summary executions. Now a new front has opened, this time, unexpectedly, from the West. Donald Trump’s brazen overtures towards Russia have publicly blindsided Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. And he has begun to show his anger. On Tuesday February 18th Mr Zelensky cancelled a long-planned trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he did not want to be associated with talks held there without him: “We were not invited…It was a surprise for us, I think for many others as well.” On February 19th Mr Trump responded by calling Mr Zelensky “a dictator”.

Mr Trump’s decision to talk with Vladimir Putin and his apparent desire to rehabilitate the Kremlin have shocked Kyiv’s political class. But by now, few are truly surprised. “Our mental state was not good the day we heard the news,” says a senior MP from Mr Zelensky’s party, “but we were expecting it.” It was no secret that Ukraine’s representatives were finding doors in Washington slammed shut. “We understood the level to which Russian narratives have taken hold in America.” An opposition MP describes a sense of “foreboding” in parliament, as deputies brace for the prospect they may have to vote through a humiliating ceasefire deal.

Even if Ukraine emerges from war, the country faces a fight for its survival. People, politicians and soldiers are exhausted. Hundreds of thousands are dead or wounded. Millions have left the country. Perhaps a third of the 4.3m Ukrainians who fled to Europe are under 18; many of them will never return. A deal without long-term security will push more parents to send their children abroad, exacerbating Ukraine’s already pronounced demographic malaise. “Peace is needed,” says a senior Ukrainian official. “We need peace. The question is—a peace that doesn’t finish us off at the same time.”

Families with teenage sons are facing especially tough choices. Either they send their boys to Europe while the law still allows them to, or they let them stay and risk everything. Serhiy Vasilyuk, a former soldier, is confronting such a dilemma. At first, he and his wife agreed that their 17-year-old son Andriy should leave. But his son insisted he couldn’t see his future anywhere else and that he would join the army as soon as he legally could. His mother remains firmly opposed. Serhiy, who sees his son in the wide-eyed recruits he led early in the war, has reluctantly granted his support. “If there won’t be kids like him, there won’t be anyone,” he says.

For all the turmoil, there is still nothing resembling a deal—yet. But so far much is developing according to Ukraine’s worst-case scenario. Many of its elite are apprehensive that the language coming from the Trump team echoes a Russian trap: calling for a ceasefire without security guarantees, and immediate elections that would shatter Ukrainian unity. “Mr Trump appears to want to get rid of Mr Zelensky, whom he has never liked and who he thinks is difficult,” says a former diplomat. “This is not about elections, it’s about getting rid of Zelensky.”

Mr Trump’s speed will probably produce not so much a quick peace as an unacceptable offer to Ukraine. It will then fall to Mr Zelensky to draw the process out, and in that gap, negotiate. Unlike Mr Trump, the Ukrainian president has not revealed his red lines. Readiness to sit with “the killer” (by which he meant Mr Putin) is compromise enough, he told this publication last week. But Mr Zelensky has already indicated he will not agree to a ceasefire without security guarantees, or to any deal done behind his back. A senior Ukrainian official says it is unlikely Ukraine would ever formally recognise lost territories as part of a deal, but concedes NATO membership is understood to be a distant prospect. A bare minimum of what Ukraine could accept, he says, is continued ties with Western armies, no serious demilitarisation, continued flow of weapons and money, and a foreign peace-keeping force. The size of that force matters less than the fact it is present. “Once they are here, we believe it will be hard for them to walk away.”

In theory, Ukraine could fight on in defiance of a Trump deal. In practice, its hand will worsen with time. The war is brutal for both sides, but more so for the poorer and less numerous Ukrainians. Ukraine’s army has shown great skill at the level of its units. But there are serious problems at the operational level, and a notable absence of strategic planning. Front-line brigades are running out of men, with some down to less than a third of their regular size. Mr Trump, meanwhile, has many levers he might pull to enforce a solution. He can—and very likely will—cut or stop military aid. He might unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia. He might cut other vital support such as real-time targeting and Starlink, the backbone of Ukraine’s battlefield communications. There are new workarounds, but turning those systems off would hurt. As one senior American official says: “If Zelensky can mobilise 18- and 20-year-old men, it might be worth fighting. If he can’t, he should take the best deal he can.”

With Europe cut out of Mr Trump’s dealmaking, much now rides on Mr Zelensky and his will to fight. He has good reason to push back against harsh demands: his job and his place in history depend on it. But standing up to an American leader who thrives on using enemies to define himself will be dangerous, and psychologically tough. Insiders worry Mr Zelensky is retreating into an ever narrower circle—right at a time he needs the broadest support. “There is no one who is ready to say no to him,” complains one, “and he is making mistakes.” Many Ukrainians are clearly frustrated with their war leader too. Internal polling revealed to The Economist shows that while Mr Zelensky remains Ukraine’s most popular current politician, he would lose a future election by 30% to 65% to Valery Zaluzhny, his former top general, who has yet to enter politics. In January, a public poll showed trust in Mr Zelensky had fallen to 52%, the lowest of the war, well below the 90% who trusted him at the invasion’s start—although well above the 4% suggested by Mr Trump on February 18th.

If all this seems perilous, it is not the worst-case scenario. The true Ukrainian nightmare would come from Mr Trump enforcing the Kremlin blueprint in entirety: ceasefire without effective security guarantees; elections that result in political paralysis, a weak presidency, a fractious parliament; then demobilisation, mass emigration and the beginning of internal disintegration. The unity shown by Ukrainians in the early days of the war would be a distant memory. “This is far from an impossible scenario,” admits one official. “Remember there are millions of weapons in the country. You can even buy a captured Russian tank on the frontlines for 100,000 hryvnia [$2,400].”

There are few signs Mr Putin has abandoned his aim of crushing the Ukrainian state. Glancing over at his 17-year-old son, Serhiy Vasilyuk predicts Ukraine will remain at war “at least as long as that bastard [Putin] draws breath”. But, he says, he also believes the really critical moment for his country passed in the first few days of war, when “his generation stopped the columns of Russian tanks at Kyiv’s door.” Now the baton is being passed to his boy’s generation. On June 3rd, Andriy will turn 18. The younger Vasilyuk plans to do two things that day: enroll in a correspondence economics degree and enlist in one of Ukraine’s elite assault units in defiance of his mother. “Even if the war ends, even if a ceasefire is reached, we will need the strongest army to make sure it never starts again,” he says. ■

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