Image Credit: Deepstate
The Domestic Front: Zelensky Under Pressure
If the military front is defined by attrition, the political front in Kyiv is defined by exhaustion. After nearly four years of full-scale war, President Volodymyr Zelensky faces the most serious domestic pressure of his presidency. None of it resembles collapse, but the foundation is cracking.
Mobilization is the most sensitive fault line. The 2024–25 draft reforms expanded eligibility and tightened enforcement, triggering pushback from mayors, veterans’ groups, and regional councils. Ukrainians understand the need for manpower; what they resent is the uneven implementation. Poorer oblasts bear a disproportionate share of the burden, while many frontline brigades remain in the trenches for months without rotation because replacements are unavailable.
Trust in military leadership has also eroded. Zelensky’s firing of General Valerii Zaluzhnyi in 2024 removed one of the few figures who enjoyed universal legitimacy—from the trenches to Washington. His replacement, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, is competent but remains unpopular among frontline troops, who associate him with earlier high-casualty operations. Zelensky has not fully recovered from the perception that the decision was politically motivated.
Corruption Returns—and Hits Close to Home
Recent scandals involving inflated energy procurement and kickbacks at state companies have deepened this pressure, sparing few in the president’s orbit. Anti-corruption agencies pushed for broader inquiries, but the president’s office appeared reluctant to allow cases to expand.
To many Ukrainians, the issue is not the contracts; it is the sense that loyalty buys softer treatment. In wartime, that double standard lands harder than any inflated line item. Veterans, in particular, have become sharply critical: they are expected to endure mud, exhaustion, and bombardment, yet perceive the political class as insulated from accountability.
The cumulative effect is a political landscape in which Zelensky remains widely respected as the wartime leader who held the country together in 2022, yet is increasingly viewed as unwilling to confront corruption when it reaches his inner circle. That perception now shadows every mobilization debate and every negotiation proposal.
The Dissolving Consensus
A deeper structural tension is the centralization of power around the presidency. Zelensky sidelined parliament early in the war; most Ukrainians accepted this as a necessity. But four years later, the absence of elections and the narrowing of political life have become sources of resentment. Opposition parties argue that wartime does not negate the need for strategic debate. Some veterans are organizing nascent political blocs, setting the stage for a post-war realignment.
This tension intersects with diplomacy. Zelensky’s push to expand the Ankara talks to include European states reflected a legitimate strategic concern: Ukraine does not want a settlement shaped by Washington, Moscow, and Ankara alone. But it also exposed how fragile the domestic coalition has become. Hardliners accused him of entertaining concessions; moderates said he was too inflexible; military leadership warned that any ceasefire could be exploited by Russia.
A War No One Can Win—Yet No One Can End
As winter approaches, Ukraine and Russia find themselves locked in a contest of endurance. Russia grinds forward slowly, believing time favors it; Ukraine holds the line, believing the West cannot allow a Russian victory without undermining European security. Neither belief is wrong, but neither produces a path to victory.
A Russian victory requires taking Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. A Ukrainian victory requires reversing Russia’s entrenchment in the Donbas and Crimea. Both goals are out of reach for now.
The war continues not because either side still believes in victory but because defeat remains unacceptable. Until one of three pillars breaks—Russian political stability, Ukrainian manpower sustainability, or Western long-term will—the conflict remains a war of momentum without resolution.
For now, the lines hold. The politics do not.
Ukraine at a Crossroads: The Battlefield Stalls, the Politics Shift, and the War Enters a New Phase
Ukraine and Russia are locked in a grinding stalemate where neither can win outright, yet both refuse to accept the cost of defeat as the political ground beneath them steadily erodes.
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