The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declared last Tuesday night that in 2025 his country will continue to fight, both on the “battlefield” and at the “negotiating table” to end the war that began almost three years ago, with the invasion of the Russian army, in his last speech the 2024, a year marked by a large-scale Russian advance.

“Every day of the coming year, our duty is to fight so that the Ukraine be strong enough. Because only such a Ukraine will be respected and listened to. Both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table,” the Ukrainian head of state said in his New Year’s address to the nation.

2024 was difficult for Kyiv. The Russian military captured nearly 4,000 square kilometers last year, facing off against the struggling Ukrainian army. That’s seven times the size of 2023. And the year that has just begun is heralded as uncertain for Kiev, particularly because of doubts about whether Washington will continue to provide support to the Ukrainian armed forces.

In recent months, the scenario for possible new peace negotiations, after almost three years of war that has left behind hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded in both camps, has been giving and taking.

Ukrainian President Zelensky said he hoped for a “just peace” in 2025, even as his army ended the year on the defensive, facing a Russian advance despite heavy losses.

He wished that “2025 will be our year. The year of Ukraine. We know that peace will not be given to us as a gift, but we will do everything to stop it Russia and to end the war,” he noted.

The consequences for Ukrainians remain enormous. There are millions of internally displaced people and refugees. Relentless Russian shelling, especially those targeting energy infrastructure, often plunges the civilian population into darkness and cold amid the harsh Ukrainian winter.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed satisfaction in mid-December for the advance of his troops, assuring that they have “the initiative” on the battlefields after a year that was a “turning point”, according to him.

In his own New Year’s address yesterday, Mr. Putin did not specifically mention the war in Ukraine. But he did not fail to mention the Russian soldiers, whom he praised for their “courage” and “heroism”.

According to an AFP analysis based on data from the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) as of December 30, its men were able to advance 3,985 square kilometers in 2024. This is seven times the area of what in 2023 (584 square kilometers).

Faced with an enemy possessing a numerical and material advantage, Ukrainian forces retreated at a pace that accelerated since the autumn, especially on the eastern front: November (725 square kilometers) and October (610) were the two months in which the Russian army occupied the largest lands from March 2022 and the first weeks of the invasion.

With this background, the questions that remain to be answered are many.

The next year will “decide who will prevail”, the Ukrainian president discounted in November, declaring then that he hopes to ensure a “just peace” in 2025.

In Kyiv, his wish finds agreement with many. “I want peace to finally come to Ukraine, for people to stop dying,” said Katrina Chemeriz, an educator.

“Everyone has only one wish, only one dream: that Ukraine will win and that all our lands will be recaptured,” said Tatiana, a civil servant who did not want to give her last name.

And this as Russia owns about 20% of the vast Ukrainian territory and the return to power in the US on January 20 further increases the uncertainty.

“I feel a certain anxiety,” admitted Katerina Tsemeriz, as the US president-elect has called for an “immediate” ceasefire and has promised to secure a peace deal between the two countries — without revealing details so far.

The US is Ukraine’s main arms lender and supplier. If American support were to decline, the consequences would be overwhelming.

“I have no doubt that the new president of the United States wants and can reach peace and end Putin’s aggression,” Mr. Zelensky, who always demands that his country receive security guarantees before even starting negotiations with Moscow.

In any such venture, he is expected to benefit from the fact that his army still holds several hundred square kilometers of Russia’s Kursk region, a thorn in Vladimir Putin’s side, as of August.

However, the latter may now count on the support of thousands of troops from North Korea, at least according to Kiev, Seoul and Western capitals. He has also multiplied his warnings of the risk of a world war if the West further strengthens its support for Ukraine, in particular providing it with longer-range missiles.

The occupant of the Kremlin continues to demand the surrender of Ukraine, the repudiation of its prospect of joining NATO and the Ukrainian regions he has announced annexed to the Russian Federation.

On the night of Monday into Tuesday, Ukraine was hit with 21 missiles and around forty attack drones, with Kiev forces claiming to have shot down 7 and 16 respectively. The Russian military announced that it hit a “military airport” and an industry of the Ukrainian “military-industrial complex”.

On the Russian side, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at a fuel storage facility in the Shmalensk region, some 500 kilometers in a straight line from Kiev, according to the regional governor, an action later confirmed by the Ukrainian military.