KRAMATORSK, Ukraine—U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent flurry of statements about Ukraine has made its way to the snow-covered trenches in the country’s east, where exhausted Ukrainian troops have been fending off Russian assaults for more than a year.
Trump has demanded that Kyiv hand over $500 billion of rare-earth minerals to the United States for continued support and suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian someday.” On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held an unprecedented meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.
“Everyone is talking about [Trump’s comments], of course,” said Serhii, a staff sergeant of the 115th Mechanized Brigade resting in an inconspicuous house on the outskirts of Lyman, a bombed-out city seven miles from the Russian troops’ first positions. Like other soldiers who spoke to Foreign Policy this month, Serhii agreed to talk on the condition that only his first name be used, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.
“I still think there’s a good chance that this hot phase will be followed by a more quiet phase. But look, for us, it’s important not to think too much about this, otherwise we’ll start making mistakes,” Serhii said.
Left: Serhii, a staff sergeant in a reconnaissance unit of the 115th brigade, sits for a portrait in Lyman on Feb. 7. Right: Weapons and a gas mask in a room of a house occupied by soldiers in Lyman on Feb. 7.
A month into Trump’s second term, Ukraine is watching with growing anxiety as the United States looks set to begin talks with Russia over the war. On Feb. 12, Trump hailed what he described as a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the two leaders reportedly agreed to meet soon.
A call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately afterward did not assuage Kyiv’s fears about being sidelined from potential negotiations. The same day, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called for allies to “[recognize] that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” while dismissing the possibility of NATO membership for the country.
This week’s talks between Rubio and Lavrov only reinforced fears in Kyiv that Ukraine could be excluded from deliberations over its future, a fear that went into overdrive when Trump on Wednesday released a statement describing Zelensky as a “dictator without elections,” calling on Ukraine’s president to “move fast or he is not going to have a country left.”
The Alley of Invincible Heroes in Sloviansk, Ukraine, portraying soldiers from the region who died fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war, on Feb. 8.
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia,” Trump added.
Closer to the front line, the prospect has become a source of both anguish and hope in recent weeks. “All wars end with negotiations,” said Oleksandr, the 32-year-old commander of a small reconnaissance unit of the 115th brigade. “But things are going to be difficult, because we don’t understand what is happening on the political side. The Russians are going to push, and we don’t know what Trump wants, what he wants from Ukraine, what Ukraine wants. We just know the Russians will keep going if they want to keep going.”
“But someone needs to think about Ukraine, because we’re running out of men. [Russia has] 140 million people, and we can’t kill them all,” Oleksandr added.
More than a year of a sustained Russian offensive on the front line has drained understaffed Ukrainian brigades. Partly to offset the lack of manpower, both armies now make extensive use of drones in both reconnaissance and strike roles. “Drones are great when the weather’s good,” said Oleksandr. “But if there’s wind, rain, snow, if it’s too cold, drones can’t fly. In any case, you always need men, ideally in coordination with drones. But in the infantry brigades, scouts are already a dying breed. … This is a specific job; not everyone wants to do it.”
“It’s clear the war has become more technological,” said Volodya, a 35-year-old military surgeon who spoke from a medical outpost set up in the basement of a partially destroyed building in Lyman. “Fewer people on the front line, and more emphasis on drones to stop enemy attacks.”
The medical staff and volunteers at a military medical stabilization point in Lyman talk on Feb. 7.
Since it began three years ago, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has caused massive casualties for Moscow. At least 172,000 Russian troops may have died since 2022, and 2024 was the deadliest year of the war, according to a recent report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Russia’s advances slowed down in recent weeks, with Ukrainian forces even launching small-scale counterattacks in several areas of the front line.
Despite its heavy losses, over the last several months the Russian military managed to reach the outskirts of Pokrovsk, the last major city under Ukrainian control in the southern Donbas, and to capture the southern town of Velyka Novosilka.
In Kramatorsk, the capital of Ukrainian-controlled Donbas about 20 miles south of Lyman, locals watch as the front line creeps closer. Russian forces slowly advanced into the defensive Ukrainian stronghold of Chasiv Yar, around 15 miles east of Kramatorsk, after weeks of brutal street fighting. The industrial city and the neighboring town of Sloviansk are now regularly rocked by explosions. On Feb. 9, a 500-kilogram Russian gliding bomb struck a residential district in Kramatorsk, killing one person and injuring 12 more. Four days later, two powerful guided bombs hit the city, killing one person.
The war-scarred buildings of Lyman on Feb. 7.
Now a garrison city crisscrossed daily by hundreds of military vehicles heading to or from the front line, 80,000 civilians still live in Kramatorsk—down from a population of about 160,000 before the Russian invasion.
“It’s already an open statistic that a significant part of the population wants a cease-fire now,” said Volodymyr Ivanenko, the head of City Hospital No. 1 in nearby Sloviansk. “If the shooting doesn’t stop, missiles will keep hitting us, factories and businesses won’t come back. It will be an endless horror here.”
People walk by a heavily damaged building in the city center of Sloviansk on Feb. 8.
Volodymyr, the chief surgeon, sits next to an empty gurney at the military medical stabilization point for the 63rd Mechanized Brigade in Lyman on Feb. 7.
“But we’re preparing for the worst, for Trump to stop helping Ukraine not only with weapons but altogether,” Ivanenko said. Across the country, the Trump administration’s shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development has already forced dozens of Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations to wind down or close projects.
On the front line, too, skepticism about Trump’s ability to secure a deal with Moscow remains widespread. “Right now, I personally don’t see whom we can talk to,” said Volodya, the military surgeon. “For me, negotiations are only possible if we can talk from a position of strength, and, judging by the developments on the front, we aren’t in this position currently.”
