Ukraine is at a crossroads. It's been more than two years of brutal, deadly conflict. Despite some shifts to the front lines, neither side has a clear path to military victory, and support for the war effort is flagging amongst Ukrainians. Is it time for President Zelensky to think about negotiating an end to the war? On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits with Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and author, about the challenges Ukraine faces, including waning morale and difficulties in military recruitment.
Ukraine is at a crossroads. It's been more than two years of brutal, deadly conflict. Despite some shifts to the front lines, neither side has a clear path to military victory, and support for the war effort is flagging amongst Ukrainians. Is it time for President Zelensky to think about negotiating an end to the war? On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits with Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and author of "Our Enemies Will Vanish," about the challenges Ukraine faces, including waning morale and difficulties in military recruitment. Although recent polls indicate that Ukrainians are more receptive to peace talks, Trofimov warns that Russia’s endgame remains unchanged—total erasure of Ukrainian national identity. With the painful history of Soviet-Era aggression still fresh in the national memory, most Ukrainians are resolute that they won’t accept compromise unless it means the return of all internationally recognized land. Trofimov cautions that the absence of security guarantees by NATO and Western allies means Russia's assault on Ukraine is far from over.
Though Bremmer and Trofimov spoke in July before Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, the larger picture remains bleak: no clear path to ending the war, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and nearly 20% of Ukraine still under occupation. And if Donald Trump wins a second term, continued US military support is uncertain. So, is it time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia for a swift end to the war? If not, what will be the cost of all this suffering?
Host: Ian Bremmer
Guest: Yaroslav Trofimov
Ian Bremmer:
Hello, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you can find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are looking at the state of the Ukraine War, two and a half years in. Young Ukrainians who've grown up under the shadow of Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea, and then it's all out assault on Ukraine in 2022, have come of age in a country at war. How will that experience shape the future leaders of Ukraine? And more urgently, what is Ukrainian President Zelensky's plan win the war? Or at least not to lose it entirely? Or is it time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia for a swift end to the fighting?
We know Putin's plan, wait out the clock. And for now, it seems to be working. Here to talk about all that and more is Wall Street Journal correspondent and all author, Yaroslav Trofimov, who was born and raised in Kyiv, and has covered the conflict extensively. Let's get to it.
Yaroslav Trofimov, thanks so much for joining us today.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Great to be on the show.
Ian Bremmer:
So talk a little bit about life in Kyiv right now. We're well over two years into this war. What is it like on the ground?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, there is one direct effect of the war in Kyiv that hasn't been really felt that much last year, for example, is lack of electricity. The Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid really eroded much to the capacity and it shows. There are blackouts for several hours every day that affects the water services, that affects the refrigeration chain in shops and restaurants.
And the other effect is that the Russian missile attacks of Kyiv have been more successful this year than last year, in part because Ukraine has a shortage of interceptors, the Patriot missiles and other interceptors for the air defenses. And in part, because the Russians have become more technically astute, and they have improved the way that cruise missiles and ballistic missiles work. Because they've been learning the lessons, technological lessons of the war as well.
And so, we've had this horrendous attack on the children's hospital in Kyiv recently, hospital where I was born. That really brought war home to Kyiv, which for a large part of this conflict outside the initial weeks of when the Russians were at the gates of Kyiv, felt insulated and safe-ish, if you will.
Ian Bremmer:
Interesting, because of course, we're seeing so many Russian missiles all across the country. Even to Lviv, which is right on the Poland border in the West. And you're saying that Kyiv itself, until recently, it felt like it was sort of a protected capital?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Right. Because it depends on how you allocate your batteries, and how you allocate your defenses-
Ian Bremmer:
The batteries, the anti-aircraft batteries?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Yeah, batteries.
Ian Bremmer:
The Patriot missile systems?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Patriots. It's not just Patriots. There were the IRSTs. There were the French SMPT. So there's a whole area of different types of anti-missile assets. And Kyiv was in this bubble because this is where the government is. This is where the most strategic installations are. And the interception rates in Kyiv were exceptionally high. Even the Russian hypersonic ballistic missiles, the Kinzhals, that the Russians had claimed would not be shut down, were actually shut down over Kyiv
But the fact is that these interceptor missiles are very, very expensive, and it creates just simply running out of them, especially as a result of this month-long freeze in the funding that only ended a few months ago.
Ian Bremmer:
And also, the attacks by the Russians on the critical infrastructure for energy, that has stepped up significantly in the past months. Now, right, the weather's nice now, but come wintertime, one expects that's going to be a very serious problem for them.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Right. There were two waves. There was the first wave that the Russians launched in about October 2022. That went through that winter, when they really, really tried to knock down the entire grid. And they failed. The Ukrainian grid held. The Ukrainians managed to repair some of it. And then the Russian attacks on electricity infrastructure stopped for more than a year.
Then they resumed again in January 2024, and they learned lessons. So they were much more methodical in how they go after it. And the situation is already bad, because it's hot, just so people get out, use air conditioners. And it's going to get much worse in the winter for sure.
Ian Bremmer:
Now, one way that I would think the Ukrainians would feel this much more directly is just how many young Ukrainian men have been sent to the front line. And they're still there, and there's no end to the deployment. In fact, they've extended that, right, at this point? They brought the age down from 28 to 26?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
25.
Ian Bremmer:
25. To 25 now. And no matter where you are, you're feeling that absence. How does that affect morale for the Ukrainian people? How does it affect their views of the future of this war?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, it's not just the young people. The Ukraine, like Russia, has a shortage of young people. For every 25-year-old, there are two 40, 50-year-olds. And people of all ages are absent because people of all ages have been sent to the front line by the hundreds of thousands.
Ian Bremmer:
Men. Again, men.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Men, yes. And some women as well. There are women soldiers, but it's the men who are drafted and sent. It's not very popular, that's clear. It's not also very popular how this election is being made because there used to be, and there probably is, a lot of corruption in the draft process. People who are wealthier could pay the way out of the draft.
But then-
Ian Bremmer:
And that's still happening now?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
That is still happening.
Ian Bremmer:
Even two years in?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
It's maybe not at the same scales it was in the beginning because there was a lot of efforts to, all the regional recruitment heads were fired by Zelensky. Some were put in jail after enormous assets were found in their possession. But all in all, it's human nature.
So I'm sure not everything is a hundred percent clean, as in any war. But again, it is unpopular. However, what is the alternative? The alternative is surrender. Surrender is also not popular. And I think Ukrainians really know what happens when the country disappears, and when they are at Moscow's mercy.
Ukraine was one of the deadliest places on earth back in the '30s and '40s. There was an artificial famine that Stalin had orchestrated in Ukraine, killing millions. There was cannibalism, there was horrible, horrible things happening. Then there were the War and the Holocaust. And so that historical memory, this trauma, it's in the family history of everyone. In my family's history, I wrote a novel about it.
Ian Bremmer:
In your novel, Yaroslav, “No Country For Love,” you talked a lot about the extraordinary, frankly, the savage and tragic history, that the Ukrainians felt at the hands of the Russians in the period of the Soviet Union. Talk a little bit about the implications of that for how Ukrainians think today.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Yeah, it's a great question. Well, the novel is based on my own family's history. In the 1930s and 1940s, at the time where Ukraine really was the deadliest place on Earth. Millions died in the artificial famine that Stalin had engineered. The cream of Ukraine's intellectual class was destroyed in the labor camps and executed. Then came the war and the destruction of Kyiv and other cities. The Holocaust. And then there was an insurgency after the war that also killed untold numbers of people in Ukrainian countryside. The insurgency that only ended in the 1950s.
And that historical memory is carried by everyone in Ukraine. So everyone has, like me, has grandparents, great-grandparents that are the survivors of this meat grinder of history, that is one of the most horrendous episodes of 20th century history. And in the back of their minds, people know that the alternative to fighting for independent Ukraine, the alternative to continuing to sustain the losses on the battlefield, is surrender. And surrender to Russia would mean the return of all those horrors, would mean the return of all this historical memory.
And the Russians are not hiding their intentions. And so the rehabilitation of the Stalinist time, the worship of the atrocities, the closing of all the museums, and the destruction of the monuments of the victims of Stalinism they're seeing in Russia right now, and parts of Ukraine, are a reminder that this is the blueprint that many in Russia want to return to.
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah. I think a lot of people don't understand that for the Ukrainians, there is a “never again” component of this, that has been made very aware to Americans on the Israel front after October 7th, in many ways, resonates every bit as deeply for the Ukrainian people.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Absolutely, absolutely. And what's compounding this “never again” component is that there's a denialism. Russia denies the existence of the famine in Ukraine. So denies the-
Ian Bremmer:
When literally millions of Ukrainians were killed.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Millions. There was widespread cannibalism. The Ukrainian countryside was ravaged and depopulated. And yet the first things that Russian occupation troops do when they enter Ukrainian towns, they destroy the monuments to the victims of the famine because they say it never existed.
Ian Bremmer:
Is it the view of the Ukrainian people that the Russians want to wipe them out as a nation? Because again, we see some of that rhetoric in the United States as well. But of course, the reality is that the front lines have been very stable for a long time.
So I think a lot of non-Ukrainians watching this show wouldn't necessarily accept, at least not immediately, that the alternative to just fighting, fighting, fighting is surrendering your whole country. Why wouldn't the alternative to fighting be, even if you don't trust the Russians, make sure you get weapons, support, and defense, and just hold onto the front lines, but try to end the fighting.
Again, you see this. So I'm wondering how you... Because you clearly come from it, it's very personal for you. I want you to explain to people.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Yeah, I think it's not the issue of what the Ukrainians believe, it's the issue of what the Russians say. The Russian former president, Dmitry Medvedev, who is the head of the ruling party in Russia-
Ian Bremmer:
Former Prime Minister, that's right.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Former President.
Ian Bremmer:
Former President, actually. In principle, at least.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Yeah, yeah.
Ian Bremmer:
He had the position, he wasn't running the country. But yes.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Right. Right. So he says what the Russian establishment really thinks, and not necessarily says. So he is on the record every day. He just put out a statement saying, “That even if Ukraine signs the peace agreement, and gives us all the lands we want, it will just be a first step towards annihilating Ukraine, because no Ukrainian state will ever be acceptable, no matter how friendly to Russia.”
And the whole idea of Ukrainian is poison, and they'll have to become Russians. Vladimir Putin, his interview with Tucker Carlson spent half an hour explaining why the Ukrainian Nation is artificial, and that Ukraine is Russia, and how the Ukrainian language was really invented by the Austro-Hungarian general staff in World War I to undermine Russia.
So the discourse in Russia is very clear, that Ukraine should not exist as a country. Ukrainians should not exist as a nation. They should become reeducated in Russian, and the nationalist elite must be physically annihilated the way Ukrainian writers, and poets, and painters were all shot in '30s.
So the blueprint is there. And it's not a question of Ukrainians thinking what their fate will be under Russian rule. The Russians are very clear about their goals. And yes, the front line has been reasonably stable, at a huge cost to lives, especially at a time where American weapons were not coming through. But it doesn't mean it will be stable forever. The reason it is stable is because Ukrainians are going to the front line and dying.
Ian Bremmer:
So I guess, given what you're saying, which is that the alternative is annihilation, and we've seen it historically, then why don't we have 99% of Ukrainians supporting the war? Because it's not, right? It was over 90 at the beginning, but now those numbers are going down, significantly down. You have a lot of Ukrainians in recent Ukrainian polls, saying, "We need to negotiate. We need to find a way to..." Have they forgotten their history? What is it?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, I think we fixate on territory. And the issue is not just territory. It's a very different proposition to say, as Russia wants, "Let's settle on the current borders, plus minus areas that Russia currently demands," so the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Ian Bremmer:
In the Southeast, yeah.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
In the southeast. Which is a big area that they still want.
Ian Bremmer:
It is.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Because Russian precondition is, we will sit down and talk with the Ukraine.
Ian Bremmer:
This is the area that they annexed illegally, but do not occupy at this point.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Exactly.
Ian Bremmer:
Yes.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Exactly. Yeah. So these are the areas that the Russian government proclaim to be part of Russia, without actually physically controlling them.
Ian Bremmer:
Which is an odd thing to do at the end of the day.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
It's a big area, it's about the size of Taiwan. It's not a small area. It contains two very big cities. However, even if you do that, and say, "Okay, we accept the partition along these lines," the next Russian demand is, "And the rest of Ukraine must be neutral," which means neutered, which means it should not be allowed to receive any weapons from the West, any security guarantees, and would basically...
That such a deal will just lay the ground for the next phase where Russia takes over the rest of Ukraine. If on the other hand, the partition deal, of temporary partition deal, presupposes that the rest of Ukraine will be protected by security guarantees from the US and NATO, and will be armed with teeth to resist, Russia should try to attack the rest of it, that's a very different deal.
But no one right now at this stage is proposing that. No one in the West.
Ian Bremmer:
Well, the Europeans are certainly proposing that under any circumstances there should be long-term security guarantees for Ukraine. That they should continue to have weapons, and training, and intelligence, and the capacity to defend themselves. Those commitments that you're hearing from the Europeans and from NATO leadership, and the US is a special for reasons we can get into, have not just been about today. They've been long-term commitments. The West, I think, is saying that.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, now this is really operational unless it is a formal treaty commitment. People can sell all sorts of things. Ukraine was promised security guarantees, was security assurances as they were called, in the '90s when it gave up its nuclear weapons.
Ian Bremmer:
The so-called Budapest Memorandum.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Exactly. And-
Ian Bremmer:
The Americans, the UK, the Russians were all signatories.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Absolutely, yes.
Ian Bremmer:
Turned out it didn't mean very much.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, it meant nothing. And so, nothing short of a formal treaty commitment, such as the Article 5 commitment-
Ian Bremmer:
In NATO?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
In NATO would really deter Russia. And everybody understands that. And so, yes, Ukraine is signaling now that it's ready to talk. President Zelensky excluded Russia from the first Peace conference at Switzerland. And he's now saying, "We'll accept Russia to be in the next round."
Question is, how do you frame it? And whether this ceasefire along current lines, or something like that, would lead to Ukraine being integrated to the Western structures and being sheltered, or would be just a pause that allows Russia to go and bite off another bit of Ukraine, as happened after the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and '15.
And if you look at the Ukrainian movie, you're right, Ukrainians are... The society's under stress, so it's hard. Everybody knows people who were killed or maimed. Everybody lives in conditions of hardship. And there was an opinion poll recently that encapsulated these things. There was one question that was asked, "How do you want the war to end?" And the vast majority, about 90%, said, "We want the return of either all territories that we had in 2022, or all the territories within Ukraine's internationally recognized borders of '90, '91, including Crimea and Donbas."
But there was another question, which asked, "Do you think it's morally shameful to be a draft dodger?" And only 29% said yes, which is-
Ian Bremmer:
We got a collective action problem there.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, yeah. Well, because people have this political aspirations, but they know how dangerous it is-
Ian Bremmer:
They know what it means as an individual human being.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Exactly. And so, not a lot of people, considering the high odds of being killed or maimed if you end up in the front line, a lot of people don't want to do that. And you do have this phenomenon of Ukrainian men trying to escape, you know, several dozen drowned in the Tisza River on the Romanian border as they were trying to swim across.
Ian Bremmer:
And this isn't like Vietnam, right? I mean like everybody understands that this is a just war that the Ukrainians are fighting. And yet, a strong majority of Ukrainians say it's okay to dodge the draft.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, again, at some point the question of individual survival has to balance against the question of collective survival. And it's human nature for many people too.
Ian Bremmer:
Look, I think it's a good thing for people around the world to understand that the Ukrainians are humans.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Of course.
Ian Bremmer:
They're not super humans. They're not like some other breed that is somehow more courageous than everyone else. They're people. And they deserve rights, and principles, and safety, but they also deserve our empathy when they can't be super people.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Right, yeah. And again, this is the numbers now. When, as you said, the front line is relatively stable, and there are no Russian tanks at the gates of Kyiv. If the front line were to be broken, and if the Russians were to be advancing in Kyiv, a lot of people who are not willing to go and fight now would come out and fight again. As we saw in the very beginning of the war where everyone came out.
I remember driving through Kyiv on day two of the war, right after Zelensky came out and made this speech outside the presidential palace, saying, "We are all here. We're not going anywhere." And there were thousands and thousands of young men and women just thronging to pick up weapons and go to the front line. And the front line was very close. It was on the outskirts of Kyiv.
And because you had this collective surge of indignation, and how dare they come and try to take our city. And so this thing sort of ebb and flow. Now is a difficult period, not the most difficult, because the Russians have not been able to achieve their goals this year. And despite this big offensive in the north, [inaudible 00:19:16] Kharkiv, they caught the Ukrainians by surprise but were stopped after a few days. And now it's really turning against them, up there-
Ian Bremmer:
With a lot of Russian casualties as well.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
With a lot of Russian casualties. And it's the Ukrainians who are now slowly pushing them back towards the border. So they lost the momentum up there. And so the Russian is also not a giant military power that people feared, and it has not been able to break through.
Ian Bremmer:
Now, I wanted to ask you, it's interesting, of course, there's been a lot of talk and a lot of mistrust of what might happen if Trump becomes President of the United States. There was an assassination attempt against the former President, and President Zelensky of Ukraine reached out and called Trump.
Trump took the call, and the readout of the call, in addition to Zelensky saying the right things about, "So sorry, and glad you're okay," and everything else, was that they talked about a just and lasting piece. And they were both aligned. Now, anyone watching the media over the last year would've been startled by that readout from Zelensky. Explain.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, I think first of all, Zelensky has been trying to reach out to former President Trump for a long time. And people like Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister of the UK, has been doing-
Ian Bremmer:
Helping.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
... shuttle diplomacy on this, as was Senator Lindsey Graham. And honestly, the passage of the supplemental would have been impossible if President Trump had decided-
Ian Bremmer:
Had opposed it.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Exactly.
Ian Bremmer:
This was $61 billion from the US to Ukraine. And Trump basically said, "If the GOP wants to vote for it, that's okay."
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, he said more than that. He said, he put out the statement on through social, that said, his usual rhetoric that it's a European problem, Europeans should be in the lead. He said, "The security and the strength of Ukraine are more important to Europeans, but they're also important to us." And this is also important to us, really was the green light that allowed the House to pass the legislation just days later.
So you had this more nuanced position from former President Trump. And the Ukrainians are hoping that perhaps he would continue the aid. Because again, what he has said is, "I will come up with a peace plan. And if the Russians don't like it, we'll double down on our aid for Ukraine." And it's unlikely that he will propose anything that the Russians will actually accept, because the Russian aspirations go much further than freezing the conflict lines."
Ian Bremmer:
At this present territory.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
At the present territory. So we'll see. Obviously, other voices in the party, like JD Vance, have been much more negative on Ukraine. But we don't yet know if President Trump wins re-election, obviously.
Ian Bremmer:
It clearly would be interesting.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Yeah.
Ian Bremmer:
Right? To have an American President being willing to smoke the Russians out on that. Because, the fact is that the US hasn't been leaning on Ukraine to say, "Okay, we need to start negotiating. We need to see where Putin's red lines are, or else." And clearly that has been Trump's line, because he wants to say he's the guy that ends the war. And if he ends the war, or is prepared to end the war, in a way that is seen, okay, not by the Ukrainians and the Russians, but by everybody else as a reasonable outcome, that would be something that the Russians would have to at least think twice about.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Well, I don't know if the Europeans will see a war that ends with the Russians of control of 20% of Ukraine as a reasonable outcome necessarily. The contrast-
Ian Bremmer:
The Poles won't, the Balts won't, the Nordics won't.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
I'm not sure-
Ian Bremmer:
The Germans will.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
It depends.
Ian Bremmer:
Again, depends on what kind of guarantees the Ukrainians get.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Exactly.
Ian Bremmer:
Right?
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Yeah, exactly. It depends on whether this is interpreted by the Russians as a reprieve that allows them to keep going, or if it comes together with much greater commitment to Ukraine in the future, and bringing Ukraine into the fold of NATO.
And it's not without precedent. When West Germany joined NATO, it also disputed borders. So there is a precedent for that, if there is a will. And so that's a big if.
I think Trump's biggest asset is his unpredictability. The madman theory, from Nixon on, it does work in international relations. And that's what the Baltic states and the Poles were always complaining about with the Biden administration, is that it telegraphed its intentions in precise detail to the Russians, and-
Ian Bremmer:
Which didn't stop them.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Which didn't stop them, and allowed them to game the system. And the Russians, as I argue in this book, about the first year of the war in Ukraine, “Our Enemies Will Vanish,” they have really gamed those fears, and they successfully used the nuclear blackmail to throttle American aid to Ukraine at the critical junctions.
And finally, when all this self-imposed red lines were crossed, it was just too late. All this equipment that came to Ukraine in the second and third year of the war would have turned the tide in the first year. But by the time it arrived, the Russians had mobilized hundreds and thousands of men, rebuild the military industries, and changed the tactics. And it was not nearly as efficient as it could have been.
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah, in many ways, the West deterred itself.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Absolutely. Self-deterrence was the name of the game here. And it really, we are really paying a very expensive price for this, in Ukraine and in the West, in terms of lives, in terms of money, in terms of ammunition that has been expended. Because more aid in the beginning would've made a much shorter war.
Ian Bremmer:
Yaroslav Trofimov, thanks for joining us.
Yaroslav Trofimov:
Great to be on the show.
Ian Bremmer:
That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you do. Why not make it official? Why don't you rate and review GZERO World five stars, only five stars, otherwise, don't do it, on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell your friends.