After the withdrawal, Ukrainian authorities discovered more than 500 bodies in the town of Bucha, near the capital. A UN investigation concluded that they were victims of extrajudicial executions carried out by Russian soldiers. Moscow rejected the findings, claiming the victims were ‘collaborators’ executed at Ukraine’s direction.
Diplomacy under fire
Almost immediately after the invasion, the first attempts at peace talks began. The Russian delegation entered the negotiations with the same demands it had advanced before the war – preventing Kyiv from joining NATO, demilitarising border areas and lifting sanctions. The Ukrainian side insisted on a full withdrawal of Russian troops and the return of abducted children transferred to Russia.
The first round of talks took place in Minsk on 28 February but ended without result. In March, further negotiations followed on the Belarusian–Ukrainian border and in Antalya, with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett acting as mediator.
In April, the parties exchanged draft peace proposals, including the document known as the Istanbul Communiqué. According to participants and subsequent reports, the Ukrainian side signalled readiness to discuss neutrality, including a pledge not to join NATO.
In April 2022, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson travelled to Kyiv. His visit coincided with the collapse of the Istanbul negotiations. Critics later argued that Western assurances of sustained military support reduced Kyiv’s incentive to pursue a compromise. No comprehensive agreement was reached.
The West steps in
Joe Biden, who had succeeded Donald Trump in January 2021, responded to the invasion with extensive military and financial support. In the first year of the war, his administration secured a $112 billion package from Congress. At the end of 2023, it requested a further $61.4 billion.
In January 2023, Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives and delayed approval of a $95 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan for months, arguing that border security at home should take precedence. The measure was finally adopted on 20 April 2024.
The European Union likewise expanded its involvement, granting Ukraine candidate status in June 2022 and opening accession negotiations. Through the European Peace Facility, it provided approximately €6.1 billion in military assistance. In February 2024, it established the Ukraine Facility to channel a further €50 billion. In January this year, the Commission provisionally approved an additional package worth €90 billion.
Western support enabled Ukraine first to halt the Russian advance and in some areas to reverse it. Ukrainian forces retook large parts of the Kharkiv region in September 2022. A month later, Putin declared the annexation of four regions in south-eastern Ukraine.
With the declared annexation of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Moscow added a further demand: the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from what it now claimed as Russian territory.
After returning to office, President Donald Trump resumed direct diplomatic contacts with Moscow. His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, met his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Riyadh in February last year – the first such meeting since the start of the war. Trump and Putin also spoke repeatedly by telephone and later met at a presidential summit in Alaska.
War of attrition
On the battlefield, Russian forces have continued to advance slowly but steadily. Western commentary has mocked Moscow with phrases such as ‘so little territory gained for so many lives sacrificed’. The Kremlin’s approach has reflected a strategy of attrition – wearing down Ukrainian manpower and matériel rather than seeking rapid breakthroughs.
A largely static phase lasted until June 2023. Zelenskyy and his commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, used the lull to prepare a counteroffensive.
Zaluzhnyi called for the mobilisation of up to half a million men to strike a narrow sector of the front. Zelenskyy rejected such a large-scale call-up, wary of the political consequences. Ukrainian forces were instead deployed along much of the line, a decision that contributed to the limited outcome of the summer offensive.
In May 2023, after ten months of fighting, Russian troops captured Bakhmut. The battle was widely described as the bloodiest infantry engagement in Europe since the Second World War.
Avdiivka became the next focal point. Fighting intensified in October 2023 and continued until the city fell in February 2024. Two months later, Russian forces concentrated on Chasiv Yar, capturing substantial parts of the town and exploiting its elevated position.
On 6 August 2024, Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, briefly seizing up to 1,300 square kilometres. The move was widely interpreted as an attempt to demonstrate that Russia itself was not immune from the war. By March 2025, Russian forces had driven them back.
As the fourth year of the war draws to a close, Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region is under sustained pressure. Its fall would open the lowlands north of the Donetsk Uplands and could accelerate further Russian advances, particularly if Moscow were to move beyond attrition towards broader territorial objectives.
Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region is also at risk. The Kupiansk–Lyman line has so far limited Russian westward movement from the Luhansk region, which, according to Leonid Pasechnik, is under Russian control ‘one hundred per cent’.
European and American governments have remained cautious about supplying long-range weapons capable of striking deep inside Russia. Berlin has declined to provide Taurus missiles, and Washington has refused to supply Tomahawks.
The Kremlin has warned that such deliveries would amount to direct Western participation in the war, raising the prospect of a sharp escalation between Russia and NATO. Western leaders have therefore sought to contain the conflict geographically.
In December 2025, Zelenskyy announced in Berlin that Ukraine would no longer actively pursue rapid accession to NATO. Instead, Kyiv would seek binding security guarantees from the United States comparable to those provided under the North Atlantic Treaty.
Crisis at home
The announcement followed a summer corruption crisis. In July 2025, amid mass protests, Zelenskyy pushed through legislation subordinating the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to the Prosecutor General, his own nominee. After Brussels signalled that EU funding could be suspended, he reversed course and restored their independence.
In November, investigators raided the state-owned energy company Energoatom, described in Ukrainian anti-corruption filings as the hub of a corruption network linked to alleged kickbacks from defence and infrastructure contracts. Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko resigned amid the scandal, and two figures who were reported to be wanted in connection with the probe – businessman Tymur Mindich and Oleksandr Tsukerman – left the country as authorities issued a search notice for their arrest.
Victory, peace – or stalemate?
After two years of war, talk of outright Ukrainian victory faded in Western capitals, replaced by calls for a ‘just peace’. Four years on, a more cautious formulation has taken hold: ‘Ukraine is not losing’.
Zelenskyy reiterated that stance in an interview with the BBC, rejecting territorial concessions in areas not fully under Russian control. ‘I don't see it simply as territory. I see it as abandonment – weakening our positions, abandoning hundreds of thousands of our people who live there,’ he said.
Any formal concession would carry domestic risks. Armed nationalist groups have signalled that they would resist compromise. At the same time, absent a settlement, Russia may continue to press its military advantage over time. Proposals attributed to Donald Trump’s reported 28-point plan include recognition of Russian control over parts of Donbas, a renunciation of NATO membership and the restoration of Russian language status. Whether such terms would be acceptable to nationalist figures such as Andriy Biletsky and Serhiy Sternenko remains uncertain.
