Russia-Ukraine War: What Will the New Year Bring?

In its war against Ukraine, Russia gained control of further territories in 2025 but failed to make significant advances on the front line.

Ukraine is increasingly countering Moscow’s massive airstrikes with its own long-range missiles and the negotiations initiated by the US have intensified as the year 2025 draws to an end.

What prospects are emerging after almost four years of war?

Little hope of progress

Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau does not believe that an agreement will be reached any time soon:

As long as Trump doesn’t increase the pressure on Putin but only tries to persuade Zelensky, the talks will remain bogged down in the minutiae of territorial concessions. The Ukrainian president will continue to be open to talks to avoid falling out of favor with Trump. Putin will continue to pretend that he is open to talks but will not deviate an inch from his goals and will have the Russian army continue to attack Ukraine... And Germany and the other EU states will continue to pay and make grandiose promises of a lasting and just peace.

Ceasefire as a strategic window of opportunity

In a Facebook post, Ukrainian political scientist Serhiy Taran sees opportunities for a lasting ceasefire:

If peace agreements are signed, it will not be their text that is decisive but rather what happens during the ceasefire. If Ukraine and Europe make sensible use of this hypothetical pause, and if, during the temporary peace, large-scale investment in arms production begins, defensive installations are built along the front line and a new architecture of joint European security is designed, then there is a chance that the pause in the war will last for a long time.

Other Topics of Interest

Hungary Says It Has Deal With Ukraine on Minority Rights, Ties It to EU Accession Talks

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced that Hungary and Ukraine have reached a “comprehensive agreement” to broaden language, cultural, educational and political rights for roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region, following several weeks of expert-level talks. Kyiv has pledged to write the agreed measures into Ukrainian law, reflecting them in the EU accession action plan. Budapest indicated it would support opening the first negotiating cluster for Ukraine.

Pressure building on both sides

On the Russian-language service of Radio Svoboda, military expert Yuri Fyodorov predicts that the importance of domestic political factors will increase:

Social and political tensions will increase in both Ukraine and Russia.The Russian masses and elites cannot but ask themselves: what is the goal of this war, and does it make sense to push on if a victory such as that described by Putin in 2022 is unattainable? In Ukraine, by contrast, the question that will come to the fore is: can the current leadership end the war on terms that are acceptable toUkrainian society?

See the original here.