On the front line, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians fiercely resist a costly peace deal

A growing percentage of Ukraine’s war-weary population is ready to cede territory to Moscow to secure a peace deal, but many soldiers and civilians in the country’s eastern Kharkiv region, the theater for some of the bloodiest battles of the conflict, stoutly oppose the idea.

“How many of my friends and relations have laid their lives down in this war, and for what, then? What would be the point if we gave it up anyway?” asked Lt. j.g. “Vadym,” his boyish traits momentarily hardened by a cold glare. Like many Ukranian soldiers, he goes only by his call name for security reasons.

A few feet away, his friend and subordinate Vitaliy nodded in silent agreement as droplets of rain ran down the length of his camouflage jacket. On the morning of Dec. 10, the two soldiers of Ukraine’s 3rd Tank Brigade were awaiting their next mission in a forest of the Kharkiv region, the focus of a grinding Russian military advance for months.

The ice-cold downpour that started early that morning did not let up when we ventured into the forest on foot. The ground beneath our boots turned into a thick layer of treacherous mud that threatened to swallow our shoes and stain everything it touched.

In early December, as 27-year-old Vadym and the other soldiers defending the Kharkiv oblast were battling the Russians and the elements, huddled around a campfire or sheltering in cramped dugouts, an idea was seemingly gaining traction in faraway Western capitals. As demonstrated by Vadym’s blunt answer, the idea would surely poll poorly with the men of the Iron Brigade.

For months, a growing number of Western government officials and pundits had been evoking the necessity of offering territorial concessions to Moscow as the only realistic way to reach a peace deal. A grinding war of attrition has left neither side with a significant advantage. Russian forces occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory in the east and south.

The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear its determination to hold on to its gains and formally annex parts of Ukraine under Russian control despite a near-global refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims to sovereignty.

Although the practicalities of such a deal are vague, the idea seems to have made inroads among Ukraine’s war-weary citizenry. A recent survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that the share of Ukrainians supporting such concessions had risen from 19% in February to 32% in October. Meanwhile, 52% of those responding to a November Gallup poll expressed a desire for their government to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.

President-elect Donald Trump, in remarks widely circulated in Ukraine, promised on the campaign trail that he would end the fighting “in 24 hours.”

Yet the incoming president has remained uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the contours of the peace agreement he would help negotiate between Kyiv and Moscow. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a vocal opponent of continued American support for Ukraine, has outlined the terms of this prospective deal.

During an interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Mr. Vance said such an accord would recognize Russian control over the roughly 18% of occupied Ukrainian territory, provide for the creation of a demilitarized zone along the 600-mile-plus front line, and force the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to offer unspecified “guarantees of neutrality” to the Kremlin. Ukraine would be kept out of NATO.

As outlined, the Trump peace plan looks a lot like a Russian victory, in effect rewarding Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor with significant territorial gains, a permanent land bridge to the occupied Crimean Peninsula and, perhaps most egregious in the eyes of Ukrainians, a continued say over Kyiv’s foreign policy and choice of alliances.

Yet the Biden administration’s overly cautious handling of the war, its drip-feeding of weapons and the restrictions it has imposed on their use on the battlefield have hardly proved more popular in Ukraine. Few Ukrainians still trust Washington to respect its commitments to defend the besieged country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity to the bitter end.

Ready to fight

The Gallup poll showed that nearly 4 in 10 Ukrainians (38%) believe Ukraine should keep fighting until victory. Many civilians and soldiers encountered during a two-week trip across the Kharkiv oblast shared that position.

The sentiment was evident on a Dec. 7 visit to the village of Dovhenke, on the administrative border between the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

Drivers exiting the E40 highway are greeted by a lone, fading billboard bearing the name “Dovhenke.” It features pictures of the destroyed settlement and the caption: “Everyone dreams of returning home, but unfortunately, the village is completely destroyed. Please help us rebuild it.”

Winding up and down barren hills and through desolate, snow-covered fields, the road leading to Dovhenke was lined with ominous signs and bits of white and red plastic tape — a reminder that mines and unexploded ammunition litter the area.

What was left of the village had hardly changed since a visit in May. Packs of half-starved dogs roamed the bombed-out streets, although a fine layer of immaculate snow had covered the destroyed houses and abandoned gardens.

Around noon, in front of Ihor Kniazev’s house, his father, Anatoliy, 70, warmly greeted a visiting party. He invited the guests inside before setting out to find his son, Ihor, working in the fields. Warm and welcoming, the house was a testament to Ihor’s absence. After Dovhenke’s recapture by the Ukrainian army in the fall of 2022, the farmer rebuilt it himself, using discarded ammunition boxes as walls and soldering artillery shells for his heating system.

“Not much has changed since you last came, though now the communal electricity is back,” Ihor said as he sat down for a rare break from working his fields.

Short and spry, with a buzz cut and piercing blue eyes, he explained between sips of black tea how he had demined 20 hectares of his land by himself, enabling him to grow, harvest and sell potatoes, wheat and other crops.

The conversation quickly turned to territorial concessions to Russia, an idea he dismissed out of hand.

“This war was never about territories. What the Russians want is to control our country, our government and to reform a union, like the USSR or the Russian empire before it,” Ihor said. “If we accept to give concessions to the Russians, we won’t be citizens anymore. We’ll end up being slaves.”

After drinking a second shot of cognac, Anatoliy weighed in: “If we abandon those territories to the Russians, we’ll never get them back.”

Debating the peace

The next evening in Kharkiv, peace negotiations were again the subject of a lively debate, this time among Oleksiy Taran, his wife, Tatyana, and their 23-year-old son, Denys.

Although their living conditions are nowhere near as dire as those of the people in Dovhenke, the residents of Kharkiv, including Mr. Taran’s family, are no strangers to the grim realities of war. A mere 18 miles from the border with Russia, Ukraine’s second-largest city has been the target of relentless Russian bombing since the first day of the invasion in February 2022.

On a visit with Mr. and Mrs. Taran in May, a Russian “glide bomb” had just torn through the cloudless sky and killed one of their neighbors, a bedridden octogenarian. Poorly concealed by a newly erected stone wall, a jumble of twisted metal, corrugated iron and burned bricks is all that remains of her house.

“I wouldn’t say it’s quiet now, but it’s quieter than when we last saw each other,” Mr. Taran said as he moved meat skewers on the grill. After sitting at the dinner table, they pondered the growing pressure on Ukraine to try to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.

“What did the Russians do in Chechnya?” Mr. Taran asked. “In the first war, they were beaten. And the second time, they remembered all their mistakes, ignored all the treaties and razed Grozny to the ground.”

Having just brought from the kitchen a steaming pot of kharcho, a traditional Georgian soup, Mrs. Taran chimed in: “Moreover, they’ll ask for land, but they’ve made it clear that they want us to be defenseless, without weapons or allies. What is that for, if not to attack us again once they’ve rebuilt their army?”

Added Denys Taran: “Everyone in the West is scared of escalation, but we’re now battling not only Russia but North Korean troops and Iranian drones. In short, what Ukraine needs now is nuclear weapons. I’m serious.”

Less than three weeks after that dinner with the Taran family, on Christmas Day, the children of Kharkiv were awakened in the early hours by the wailing of air raid sirens and explosions. The unlikely “Christmas truce” that Pope Francis had called for in his latest prayer failed to materialize when Russia unleashed drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities and the country’s energy infrastructure.

In Kharkiv alone, 74 buildings were damaged, 840 windows were smashed, and entire neighborhoods were left without heat.

Such attacks only strengthen the conviction of many Ukrainians that any diplomatic deal on the table amounts to a betrayal of the country’s sacrifices after nearly three years of brutal fighting.

“I can’t give away even a piece of this land because my grandparents and my parents are buried in it. My granddaughter ran on this land. And she will keep running here,” Serhii, a 55-year-old sergeant with Ukraine’s 113th Territorial Defense Brigade, said on a mid-December visit to one of his unit’s artillery positions in the Kharkiv region.

After a bumpy drive through frozen fields and snow-covered dirt roads, the crew eagerly showed off “Grandma,” as they called their venerable KS-19 100 mm anti-aircraft gun. This Soviet-era artillery piece, which the soldiers said they captured from the Russians, first entered service in 1948.

After firing once toward Russian positions, the men invited the group back inside their dugout to await potential counterbattery fire.

As the kettle began to boil, Serhii, a stout, jovial man with a thick, graying beard, circled back to the debate over a cease-fire deal.

“If the Ukrainian people are not killed, they will not surrender. They will fight on their native land as long as they have the strength,” he said, his amicable smile seemingly at odds with the seriousness of the matter.

“As long as it will be necessary,” he added as swirls of smoke from his wooden pipe lazily rose toward the wooden ceiling.

His last words seemed to hang for a moment in the air. The other soldiers inside the cramped dugout remained silent, the stillness occasionally broken by the muffled cracks of outgoing artillery overhead. Serhii said no one, not even Washington, can force the Ukrainian people to lay down their arms.

“When we run out of bullets, we’ll cut them up with knives,” he said, a slight smile on his lips.