Trump wants peace but Ukrainians fear what that might look like

• Posted on February 14, 2025February 14, 2025
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

“I have no plans for the future at all,” says Oleksandr Bezhan, standing next to an empty, frozen paddock where he used to work as a fisherman on the bank of the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine. “If I wake up in the morning, that’s already pretty good.”

Malokaterynivka sits just 15km (9 miles) north of the front line in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

If US President Donald Trump succeeds in halting the war, Malokaterynivka is hoping to end up on the right side of that front line.

I last visited this area in 2023, when Ukraine launched a much-anticipated counter-offensive.

At the time, Ukrainians dared to dream of winning this war. They had, after all, won the battle of Kyiv and liberated swathes of territory elsewhere.

But 18 months on, thunder-like artillery exchanges reflect the failure of that operation, and Russia’s dominance.

The front line here is broadly in the same place – but the broad expanse of river has gone.

When the Russian-occupied Kakhovka dam downstream was destroyed, this became a vast, uninterrupted expanse of scrubland.

The barren surroundings reflect the frozen limbo Ukraine finds itself in. The White House wants to end the war, but it’s not as simple as blowing a full-time whistle.

“If the front line becomes a border, it would be scary… fighting could break out at any moment,” explains Oleksandr.

The exposed riverbed separates our location from Russian-occupied territory. Distant sunlight bounces off the metallic Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in Moscow’s grip since 2022.

Ukraine and the US both want peace, but that is where the consensus seems to end.

Washington’s vision of it, along with battlefield realities, means Russia will likely keep hold of the Ukrainian land it’s seized.

Ukraine wants meaningful security guarantees that would prevent invading forces from pushing across the river.

Instead, Donald Trump has denied Kyiv’s dream of joining the Nato alliance as he focuses on Russia.

Having watched and reported on Ukraine’s fight for more than three years, it is an especially tough hand for the country to receive.

There are feelings of betrayal. Commentators criticise either Ukrainian President Zelensky or the new foreign policy of its biggest ally.

“The border wouldn’t depend on us,” says Oleksandr. “It probably won’t work out, but Seoul is 30km from North Korea, and they somehow live and prosper.”

Malokaterynivka’s challenge of finding a new purpose lies at the heart of Ukraine’s future.

And while politicians talk about talks, Ukrainians continue to fight and die.

Villagers gather for the funeral of a local soldier, also named Oleksandr. Half of the graves in the cemetery are freshly dug.

The ceremony can’t last more than 25 minutes because of the threat of artillery. Mourners flinch and duck for cover when his comrades fire off a gun salute.

“I don’t have hope for a ceasefire,” says his widow Natalya, who nevertheless wants to be proved wrong.

“They just keep sending more and more of our boys to the front. If only they could find some way to end it.”

Alongside the river is a disused rail line surrounded by barbed wire.

“It’s to stop Russian agents from sabotaging the track,” explains Lyudmyla Volyk, who’s lived in Malokaterynivka her whole life.

Trains used to run all the way to Crimea in the south.

“We hope that one day it will be restored,” says the 65 year old, optimistically. “And that one day we’ll go to our Crimea.”

The peninsula’s eleven years of Russian occupation makes it hard to imagine.

-BBC