Published by The i Paper (1st December, 2025)
The long overnight train journey from Warsaw to Kyiv ran like clockwork, as it has throughout the war, and the hours flew by chatting to my fellow passengers. They included a top child psychiatrist, who shook his head in bafflement at Russia’s cruelties as he told me hideous stories of kids left traumatised by horror. There were Korean defence contractors, executives from a Japanese firm that recycles rubble into new building materials, and a young Chinese man leaving his own land for the first time to study in a nation he admired due to its fight for freedom. He despised his own dictatorship, had no fear of bombs, and his story seemed a powerful symbol of the global significance of Ukraine’s struggle against repression.
Yet these days, the narrative about this grim war is as gloomy as my rented flat, which lost power within minutes of my arrival. The power cuts caused by Russian drones and missiles are intense, corroding their fragile economy and lasting up to 16 hours as Ukraine’s harsh winter starts to bite. This inflames justified fury over the sleazy corruption scandal in their energy sector, which has driven out President Volodymyr Zelensky’s closest adviser amid demoralising revelations of kickbacks, bundles of cash and a golden toilet. And Moscow is claiming battlefield gains as its forces grind forward in the south and east to seize more bloodstained land. This all feeds pressure for the dismal “peace deal” pushed by a White House that is clearly working in league with the Kremlin to the detriment of democracy.
This is a challenging moment for Ukraine and its besieged leader as the nation struggles for survival against a foe grimly intent on its destruction. Ukraine’s forces are struggling with severe manpower shortages in the face of attacks by a despot happily sacrificing vast numbers of his own people to stay in power. But be wary of falling for the myths being pushed by Vladimir Putin and his propaganda machinery about Kyiv’s imminent collapse and the corruption staining this supposedly fake democracy. These are simply weapons of destruction to weaken support in the West and assist the White House in its grotesque efforts to enforce Ukraine’s capitulation. And of course, Donald Trump loves winners, whether real or imagined.
Last week Putin made overblown claims about their successes, whether knowingly or because he is fed falsehoods by toady generals trying to please their boss. He was backed up by Russian state media boasting about collapsing frontlines “leaving large areas unprotected”, talking of mass Ukrainian desertion and surrender with reports their forces would advance again on Kyiv. Then came more deadly attacks on the capital’s energy systems to weaken morale. Yet these Kremlin assertions were rebuffed first by the respected Institute for the Study of War think tank, which said the frontline did not seem to be facing collapse, then by a Russian war correspondent, who highlighted the use of artificial intelligence to fake videos of surrendering soldiers.
Warfare is, of course, inherently unpredictable – as Putin found when his dream of rapid victory dissolved after meeting the reality of Ukrainian resistance in early 2022. It took his troops another two years to capture the small industrial town of Avdiivka, which sits just four miles from Donetsk, capital of the self-styled “people’s republic” seized by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014. They have been fighting for 16 months to take Pokrovsk, a railway junction 40 miles away that was once home to 60,000 people and which has long ceased to have much strategic significance. Leaked Russian data suggests 43,709 Russians were killed or captured in this single battle in just eight months of this year, with another 52,865 wounded. Imagine their losses needed to seize the remaining chunk of Donetsk held by Ukraine – about 2,500 square miles – that includes a heavily-defended “fortress belt” with four bigger cities.
No wonder Putin wants Donetsk handed over to him in a face-saving “peace deal”. He follows the traditional Russian military approach that cares little for human life. “If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there,” their Second World War hero Marshal Zhukov told US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Unsurprisingly, there are signs some regions are struggling to fund and meet their quotas to send fresh meat to a frontline with life expectancy reportedly of less than two weeks. Meanwhile, Russia’s energy exports have collapsed, its oil refineries are under attack and Ukraine’s naval drones have started sinking tankers in the Black Sea. One Russian paper recently reported that half their clothes shops have shut. Another asked if Russia is suffering “economic stagnation”.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent sees a race between the Russian economy and Ukrainian military over which can hold up longest. Yet note the fury over the corruption scandal in Kyiv – which demonstrates the resilience of their democracy as the president’s key aide is driven from office following demonstrations to defend anti-corruption units – compared with both Moscow and Washington. Russia’s regime is a gang of thieves ripping off their country. And Trump’s view of the world is guided by self-glorification and enrichment of his family, pals and cronies with minimal resistance; even the ceasefire deal for Ukraine is driven by the shared Kremlin and White House desire for profits rather than peace, as The Wall Street Journal revealed last week.
Few people on earth are more desperate for peace than citizens of this battered and brutalised nation. Yet Ukrainians have seen the painful cost of empty security guarantees – such as those given in 1994 by Britain, Russia and the US in return for abandoning the nuclear weapons that might have saved them from atrocities. They know also the reality of Putin’s promises having heard him insist that Russia “long recognised the borders of modern-day Ukraine”, then deny his armed forces would ever attack anyone. So as they sit over coffees and computers in cafes with humming generators, they can only wonder if Zelensky was right when he told Europe’s leaders that “life will win over death and the light will win over darkness”.