Ukraine enters fifth year with no end in sight

The war in Ukraine enters its fifth year this week, with millions of Ukrainians displaced, hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed, and little change on the battlefield.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The Kremlin predicted that the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine would end in days, and that the way it would end would be with Ukraine capitulating. That is obviously not how things turned out because tomorrow marks four years of all-out war - four years. And this last year of U.S.-sponsored peace talks appear to be at an impasse. NPR's one of the few news organizations to have kept correspondents covering the war in both countries. So let's bring in now, NPR's Joanna Kakissis from our bureau in Kyiv. Hey, Joanna.

JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Hello, Mary Louise.

KELLY: And Charles Maynes at the helm in our Moscow bureau. Hey, Charles.

CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Hi there.

KELLY: So one thing I remember from the early days of the war is territory kept changing hands. The front line was so dynamic. That feels less true. Joanna, what is the battlefield picture today?

KAKISSIS: Well, Mary Louise, since 2023, this has really become a war of attrition. Ukrainian forces are holding back a much larger Russian army. They're using technology like cutting-edge drones to help with that defense. Russia is making gains incrementally. Today, Russia controls about 19% of Ukraine's territory, but much of that land was seized back in 2014. The Russians have only gained about 1.5% since 2023, according to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. Now, as Russian troops march forward, Ukrainian towns are being bombed and burned to the ground - wiped off the map. I remember meeting a woman in an eastern Ukrainian town that is now under siege, and she compared the Russian advance to metastatic cancer killing everything in its way.

KELLY: Charles, what about from Russia? How does the Kremlin see the war now?

MAYNES: Well, Russia continues to insist that victory is inevitable, given its advantages in men and material, and it's in it as long as it takes. But I think it's instructive to see how war supporters also explain away setbacks, as Viktor Litovkin, the chief military analyst for the state news agency, TASS, did to me in an interview when he painted Russia as the victim, the one being bullied here.

VIKTOR LITOVKIN: (Speaking Russian).

MAYNES: So, here Litovkin says the problem is Russia is not fighting the Ukrainian army, but the U.S., NATO and all their allies. So it's all these countries against Russia all on its own.

KELLY: Interesting. So I want to turn us to the human cost of this war, which we know has been...

MAYNES: Yeah.

KELLY: ...Enormous, but do we know how enormous? Are there reliable estimates out there, Joanna?

KAKISSIS: Well, Russia and Ukraine do not reveal their own true losses, especially on the battlefield. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., says at least 1.2 million Russian soldiers and 600,000 Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed, wounded or are missing. Now, in Ukraine, constant Russian attacks over the years have killed at least 15,000 civilians, so the tally could be much higher, according to the U.N., and they've wounded another 41,000. The U.N.'s new high commissioner for refugees, Barham Salih, was in Ukraine last week, and he told NPR that the war has gone on for so long, it's also easy to forget how many people this war has also uprooted.

BARHAM SALIH: Three point seven million Ukrainians remain displaced within the country. Nearly 6 million people have become refugees in neighboring countries and in Europe and beyond. The human cost is truly staggering.

KAKISSIS: And more recently, Mary Louise, Russia has weaponized the winter, destroying Ukraine's energy grid during the coldest winter in recent years, leaving Ukrainian cities without electricity and heat sometimes for weeks.

KELLY: So into this, Charles, steps President Trump. He's reelected. He comes back into office. He says hey, I know Putin. I can solve this thing in a day.

MAYNES: Yeah. And it's proven, by Trump's own admission, far more challenging than he expected. Months of U.S.-led talks have been bogged down over Kremlin ultimatums that Ukraine surrender territory, including land in eastern Ukraine that's not controlled by Russian forces. No surprise that Ukraine doesn't like the idea.

KAKISSIS: Yeah. In fact, Ukraine has suggested it is open to proposals to create a demilitarized zone in the east, but only if Russia agrees to withdraw some forces. Also, the Ukrainians want to secure ironclad security guarantees from the U.S. and European allies, so Russia does not invade the country again.

MAYNES: Yeah. But I think it's important to point out that in Moscow, you hear people saying that it's a mistake to think peace hinges on a land-for-security swap alone. In particular, they say that this doesn't resolve what the Kremlin calls its root causes of the conflict - in other words, a neutral and neutered Ukraine with a government less hostile to Russia and certainly with no NATO presence there.

KELLY: I just want to bring us toward a landing here by focusing again on the human element of this. And I'll put to both of you - Charles, you're in Moscow, Joanna, you're in Kyiv. Y'all have been covering this war. You've also been living this war, in a way. I mean, how has life changed over these last four years?

KAKISSIS: Well, Mary Louise, Ukrainians are absolutely exhausted. And many actually flinch when Ukrainians are praised as resilient. They often say, well, did we have another choice?

KELLY: Yeah.

KAKISSIS: I think a whole lot, Mary Louise, about a woman named Olha Chupikova. I first met her in 2022. She was practically glowing because Ukrainian troops had just freed her city, her son, from Russian occupation. I saw her again last year, and her face was just pale with stress and grief. Her only child, a son, had been killed on the front line. Her city is now one of the most dangerous places in Ukraine. Russian drones hunt and kill civilians.

OLHA CHUPIKOVA: (Speaking Ukrainian).

KAKISSIS: And she told me, "the Russians are trying to make life hell for us to see how long we have the strength to stay, to fight." And she said, "I have the strength." And then she went to work. She actually landscapes the city's parks as drones fly right over her head.

MAYNES: You know, Mary Louise, in Russia, the war can feel strangely everywhere and nowhere all at once. War recruitment posters hang everywhere you look - in every shop at every bus stop. Yet, with the exception of a few Russian border regions where the war is keenly felt, authorities have worked really hard to preserve a sense of normalcy. And I think that's important to point out because for all of Putin's claims that a nation is united behind the war effort, the truth is most Russians don't want to take part. It doesn't affect them.

You know, the state offers money - huge sums by Russian standards - to get people to enlist. It takes offering prisoners, convicts amnesty deals to further fill those ranks. And so Russia's war today thrives on a mix of money, conformity and fear. I meet people all the time who quietly tell me they want this to end but would never speak out publicly because it's criminalized. It's far safer for them to keep silent or share their views among the most trusted of friends, much like Russians used to in the Soviet Union.

KELLY: That's NPR's Charles Maynes reporting from Moscow and Joanna Kakissis reporting from Kyiv. Thanks, you two.

KAKISSIS: You're welcome.

MAYNES: Thanks, Mary Louise.

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