It has been a thousand days since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine, and this grim event arrived amid uncertainty and fear about what could come next.
The war has been in virtual stalemate for months, with little movement on the front lines while death and destruction continue to mount. With international focus increasingly on the need for a diplomatic settlement to stop the bloodshed, the change of US administration from President Joe Biden to President-elect Donald Trump has changed the political calculus for Ukraine’s Western allies and raised questions about what negotiations might look like. He loves.
Even the announced change in US position – allowing Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range weapons to strike Russian territory – is not expected to change expectations on the battlefield.
“This is an attempt by the Biden administration — by Biden himself — to do what he can before he leaves office to strengthen Ukraine’s negotiating position in the inevitable peace talks to come,” said Andrew Rasoulis, a senior fellow at the Canadian Global Centre. The Institute of International Affairs and a former federal government defense official spoke about the long-range weapons decision, which neither U.S. nor Ukrainian officials have publicly confirmed.
As for Ukraine itself, the stated goal remains the same as it was a thousand days ago: defending its territorial integrity and achieving lasting peace.
Diplomats and analysts agree that the next few months will be crucial, and that the desire to end the war is clear.
“The Ukrainian people have suffered enough,” said Oleh Nikolenko, Ukraine’s consul general in Toronto. “We don’t want another 1,000 days.”
Both Ukraine and Russia have kept military casualty numbers closely guarded, and Western intelligence reports have provided varying estimates, leaving the exact numbers unclear. There is a consensus among these reports that at least tens of thousands of soldiers were killed on both sides.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said Monday At least 12,162 civilians have been killed since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, including 659 children, while at least 26,919 other civilians have been injured.
The report said that more than 90% of those human losses were the result of explosive attacks, amid the ongoing Russian bombing campaign targeting Ukrainian civilians and vital infrastructure.
According to the United Nations, Ukraine’s population has fallen by 10 million, or about a quarter, since the beginning of the invasion, which also caused the birth rate to collapse by about a third, led to more than six million Ukrainians fleeing abroad to Europe and displacing nearly four million inside. The country.
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Entire cities and towns in the eastern and southern front line area have been completely destroyed.
Russia now occupies and claims to have annexed about a fifth of Ukraine, an area equivalent to the size of Greece. Those territories include provinces seized by Russian proxy forces in 2014, triggering a years-long civil war and precipitating Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
The map above shows progress on the battlefields of Ukraine and Russia in 2024 as the war enters its 1,000th day. (AP digital included).
Despite the scale of the devastation, Ukraine, against all expectations, managed to fend off Moscow’s stated goal of overthrowing Kiev and undermining the Kremlin’s military superiority, something Nikolenko said he was “not surprised by.”
He said that Ukrainians at home and abroad, although “exhausted,” are determined to hold on to what they have and fight to regain what has been taken.
“It is time for our partners in the international community to step up their efforts to help achieve justice for Ukraine,” he said. “And of course if we don’t do that, Russia’s appetite will grow.”
Rasoulis said the past 1,000 days showed, among other things, a “failure” of risk calculations that may have prolonged the war longer than was possible.
He pointed to November 2022, when then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said, Ukraine was in a position of strength To push for peace talks with Russia, which is suffering from successive military failures.
Instead, the talks were ruled out, and Russia was able to fortify its defensive lines and prevent the Ukrainian counterattack from gaining significant ground last summer.
As the stalemate continued – and the US Congress stalled on approving more military aid – the Ukrainians were subjected to successive waves of Russian forces, missile attacks and air strikes, and Russia was able to make some strategic gains.
Despite its expansion and superiority, Ukraine managed to surprise again in August, when it launched a surprise incursion into Russia and seized hundreds of square kilometers in the Kursk region – territory it still controls.
At the same time, the Biden administration, Ukraine’s largest backer, has been slow to provide many types of weapons requested by Ukraine, and has been cautious about how it allows those weapons to be used. It delayed deliveries of Abrams tanks and long-range ATACMS systems last year, fearing Russian escalation against NATO.
Despite repeated requests from Ukraine to use these US-supplied missile systems to strike deep into Russian territory and destroy its long-range capabilities, Biden has been slow to agree to such requests. Those strikes were briefly authorized against Russian forces that were launching cross-border attacks on the city of Kharkiv earlier this year.
The Associated Press and Reuters reported on Sunday that Biden would lift restrictions to allow strikes on Russian forces seeking to reclaim territory in Kursk, and would also overcome thousands of North Korean troops sent to aid Moscow’s counteroffensive.
Defense Secretary Bill Blair said Monday that the U.S. decision is “important” to help Ukraine defend itself, and is consistent with Canada’s long-standing support for long-range attacks against Russia.
Biden’s deputy national security adviser, John Feiner, rejected the Kremlin’s warning that the decision added fuel to the conflict, telling reporters on Monday: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine lit the fire.”
“The Ukrainians are desperately trying to hold on to that area (in Kursk) so that the Ukrainians, when negotiations finally come, can trade some territory” for Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory, Rasoulis said. “These are the calculations (for the American decision).”
Those negotiations could take place as early as 2025, especially if Trump follows through on his pledge to quickly end the war upon taking office — though he has not said how.
Russia said it would be open to negotiations to end the war if Trump started it, and if Ukraine recognized “the facts on the ground.” It is believed that this means that Ukraine will have to give up the areas that Russia claims to have annexed.
US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and other Trump advisers have suggested that a final peace settlement would include Ukraine giving up those territories, agreeing not to join NATO and turning the current front line into a demilitarized zone, which some experts fear will not lead to lasting peace. Some of these advisers, including Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, He criticized Biden’s decision – Reducing restrictions on long-range weapons.
It may not be known whether Trump is listening to those voices or to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until Trump takes office in January.
Rasoulis said a comprehensive ceasefire settlement that includes Western-backed security guarantees to prevent another Russian invasion would be the best and most likely path. He added that a broad, long-term European security agreement would also be essential to build confidence in the new post-war world order.
Zelensky shows optimism and a desire to work with the Trump administration to ensure that Ukraine has a strong negotiating hand.
“For our part, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, through diplomatic means,” Zelensky said in an interview with Ukrainian Radio broadcast on Saturday. He added that the war would likely end faster under Trump, despite having previously criticized the president-elect’s stance.
Nikolenko said any suggestions that Ukraine would cede territory to Russia in peace talks were a “red line” that contradicted Trump’s stated vision of the world.
“Seizing territory by force, imposing will by force – we don’t want to live in that kind of world,” he said. “This is inconsistent with what President-elect Donald Trump actually sees when he talks about peace and security in the world.”
-With files from Reuters and Associated Press
