Volodymyr Zelensky wants the president-elect to bolster Kyiv on the battlefield before opening negotiations with Russia

Ukrainian fighters on the front line near Zaporizhzhia last week Credit: Oleg Movchaniuk/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Adrian Blomfield in Kyiv18 January 2025

Forcing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia before it regains the advantage on the battlefield would be a catastrophic mistake, officials in Kyiv have warned ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Fearing that the new US administration could reduce military aid if he refuses talks, Volodymyr Zelensky is scrambling to make the case that Ukraine first needs time and support to escalate its campaign deep inside Russia.

A failure to make Vladimir Putin “feel pain” before negotiating would would embolden the Russian president, weaken Ukraine and ultimately damage the West’s reputation and interests, according to Mr Zelensky’s aides.

Eager for a rapid replication of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Mr Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours.

While the incoming president’s team concedes that will not happen, Keith Kellogg, the retired general who is Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy, has given himself 100 days to bring the conflict to a close.

Such self-imposed deadlines have caused deep concern in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, where officials warn that rushing into talks would simply play into Putin’s hands.

“The bottom line is that there are no simple, quick decisions to be made here,” says Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Mr Zelensky. “The initiative has to be controlled. It must not be given away to Russia.”

Although Russia is advancing slowly but steadily, notably by gaining ground around the important logistics hub of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials say they are making important headway far beyond the front lines.

In the past week, Ukraine has carried out some of its biggest strikes on Russian territory yet. Using homemade drones, US-supplied Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles provided by Britain.  

Ukraine struck multiple targets in four Russian regions, hitting oil facilities, industrial plants and military production sites more than 700 miles from the border.

1. Ukraine said it struck a Russian chemical factory that makes rocket fuel and ammunition in the Bryansk border region
2. Authorities reported a “massive” drone attack in the western region of Tula but claimed minimal damage and no casualties.
3. The Ukrainian army struck a tanker at a liquefied natural gas base, sparking a large blaze.
4. Saratov and Engels, located around 7 miles from one another, were both attacked by Ukrainian UAV drones. Ukraine said an oil refinery in Saratov was targeted by drones.

The attacks are having a significant impact on the Russian economy, Putin’s greatest vulnerability, and it is vital that Ukraine is given support to compel the Kremlin to enter negotiations from necessity rather than choice, Mr Podolyak said.

“At the moment, 46 per cent of the Russian refinery sector is under attack or within range of Ukrainian weaponry,” he added. “This means that Russia is gradually losing a large part of this key sector of its economy.

“In addition we are also hitting key military infrastructure across the European region of Russia.

“We need to be able to keep up this kind of pressure if we are to enter negotiations from a position of strength. Only if Russia is suffering losses will it be willing to negotiate meaningfully.”

After a year of strikes on Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure, Ukraine has stepped up attacks after receiving permission from Britain and the US to use their missiles against targets inside Russia. Meanwhile, Ukraine has increased domestic drone manufacturing, with record production levels expected in 2025.

In theory, targeting Russian refineries, which cost tens of billions of pounds, is effective because energy is the mainstay of the country’s economy. It is unclear how much damage Ukraine has inflicted, as Russia has classified most of its oil production data.

Last month a Ukrainian drone attack forced Russia to shut down the primary oil refining units at the Novoshakhtinsk processing plant, its largest, for the third time in a year.

Meanwhile, Russia’s seaborne fuel shipments fell 9 per cent in 2024, suggesting the attacks have forced Russia to cut down on exports and shore up its domestic capacity.

However, a Ukrainian intelligence source said Russia has mostly been able to repair oil facilities “within a week” and only additional Western missiles, coupled with more robust energy sanctions, would force Putin to recalculate.

It is doubtful that Ukraine’s pleas will have much traction with the new US administration.

In a much-read report he co-wrote in April last year, Gen Kellogg argued that the prospect of a Ukrainian military victory over Russia had evaporated and there was little possibility of recovering lost territory.

Claiming that the US was heedlessly drawing down a stockpile of advanced weaponry that might be needed if China invaded Ukraine, he maintained that continuing to arm Ukraine amounted to “expensive virtue-signalling”. Future American military aid, he insisted, would “require Ukraine to participate in peace talks with Russia”.

If such talk has contributed to a feeling of bleakness in Ukraine, Mr Zelensky’s government is doing its best to put on a brave face.

The Ukrainian leader has engaged in endless energetic lobbying since Mr Trump’s election victory in November, sending delegations to Washington to meet the president-elect’s aides as well as his allies in Congress.

Seeking to combine flattery with persuasion, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament even nominated Mr Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

For Ukrainian officials, the chief hope is that if the incoming president cannot be persuaded to offer the support needed on the battlefield, he can at least be convinced not to abandon Ukraine entirely.

While Mr Trump may hope to negotiate directly with Putin, alpha male to alpha male,the president-elect risks repeating Joe Biden’s hapless departure from Afghanistan if Russia is allowed to dismember Ukraine, they warn.

Some even draw parallels with Neville Chamberlain’s sacrifice of Czech territory in the Sudetenland under the Munich Agreement of 1938, arguing that territorial concessions to Putin would be seen as similar appeasement.

“Just as these agreements contributed to, rather than prevented, the Second World War, we really want to prevent a third one,” said Maria Mezentseva, a Ukrainian MP at the forefront of Ukraine’s diplomatic strategy in Europe.

Ukrainian officials believe progress has been made in convincing the incoming administration that Russian aggression is “less about the acquisition of Ukrainian territory than it is about the reallocation of influence”, Mr Podolyak says – in other words that Putin’s ultimate aim is as much the destruction of the West as the conquest of Ukraine.

Mr Trump has gone quiet on the suggestion that he could solve the Ukraine crisis on his first day in office. He still wants a quick end to the war, but is reported to have acknowledged it will take up to six months.

One factor in the president-elect’s decision-making is his desire to win a Nobel peace prize, according to The Times, a prize he feels he should have won during his first stint in the White House.

Mr Trump feels he could secure the Nobel with a lasting peace for Ukraine, and therefore will not let the country capitulate, one report suggested.

Despite the guarded optimism, Ukrainian officials are quietly bracing themselves for the possibility they may have to negotiate from a less-than-ideal position if Mr Trump remains obdurate — assuming that Putin is willing to negotiate at all.

If they do go ahead, says Olena Sotnyk, an adviser to the deputy prime minister, it is vital that talks are not simply between Russia and the US but that Ukraine and its European partners, particularly Britain, are also at the table.

Keir Starmer visited Kyiv last week with a promise to ensure robust security guarantees if a ceasefire is negotiated with Russia. During talks with Mr Zelensky, the Prime Minister pledged he would work towards a “just and lasting peace” that would guarantee Ukraine’s security and independence.

Britain is discussing sending troops to join a potential peace-keeping force in Ukraine, but Ukrainian officials warn any ceasefire could only be enforced if Western forces were willing to strike hard at Russia if it violated the truce.

This would mean enforcing a no-fly zone for Russian aircraft over Ukraine, training missiles on targets in Russia, ready to retaliate instantly to a breach of the ceasefire, and training and bolstering Ukraine’s exhausted army, Mr Podolyak said.

Even that might not be enough for the Zelensky government.

The only real way to deter Russia, Ms Sotnyk said, was to take a step to which the US and some of its European allies remain firmly opposed. 

“The only really sustainable security guarantee is Nato membership for Ukraine,” she said.