Ukraine’s Cold War: Despite Peace Talks, Winter Bites Hard at the Eastern Front
By Brian Dooley
Kharkiv: News of peace talks to end the war on Ukraine seems like something from a parallel universe here at the eastern front. While political leaders and armchair experts in the U.S. and Europe ruminate over hypothetical scenarios for a future peace deal, in the northeastern city of Kharkiv locals scrutinise changes to the front line as Russian troops advance slowly but steadily westwards towards us.
Ukraine’s military reports that yesterday it repelled Russian attempts to further advance in 17 places in the Kharkiv region. The Russian army remains camped about 12 miles from the city.
After another night of air raid warnings, the news today is that several civilians were killed by missiles in surrounding towns and villages. Four days ago, a Russian guided bomb killed two civilians on one of the city center’s busiest roads. Such reports aren’t extraordinary here, as this region has been at the forefront of Russia’s war on Ukraine for the last four years.
The winter months are particularity tough, as Russian attacks on the city’s heating and electricity infrastructure make it hard to stay warm. There is severe rationing of power in many neighborhoods, and some communities outside the city have very limited or even no power.
It’s way below freezing in Kharkiv today; 18 degrees Fahrenheit today with heavy snow, and later this week it will drop to six degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve reported from here during each of the four winters since Russia’s 2022 invasion, and this is the worst. It’s harder to heat people’s homes and to keep the lights on. It gets dark here in the afternoons around 3.30pm until 7.30am in the morning.
President Trump’s positive hype around peace talks he hosted in sunny Florida seem otherworldly, not least compared to what seems realistic here. His public assurances that “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed …They’re going to be helping. Russia’s going to be helping,” are widely mocked here. It will take more than the power of positive thinking to end this war.
The biggest obstacle to any deal remains Russia’s ongoing occupation of much of Ukraine. Polling released yesterday found 76 per cent of Ukrainians consider it unacceptable to recognize Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as part of Russia in any peace deal.
I have visited many areas around Kharkiv which were under Russian occupation for several months in 2022, where locals told me of widespread abuse, including torture, by Russian forces. Currently around 300,000 people are estimated to be living in Russian-occupied territories, and the prospect of Russia being allowed to keep parts of Ukraine it took by force remains the single biggest problem in the negotiations.
Meanwhile, Kharkiv continues to function. It’s Ukraine’s second-largest city after the capital Kyiv, and is about the size of Philadelphia. Despite the severe temperatures, attacks on its heating infrastructure, and proximity of Russian forces, the city’s metro and tram systems work well, coffee shops use small generators to stay open, and there will be New Year’s Eve parties tomorrow.
Conversation about Trump’s peace efforts are generally met here with eye-rolling and exasperation at White House unpredictability. I was here in February this year when Trump attacked Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in a press conference, and in August when Zelenskyy returned to Washington for a friendlier welcome. I’ve written for Ukrainian media on Trump’s failures to end the war, and how the U.S. government is generally regarded here as a highly unreliable partner.
“This week Trump said he wants to end the war, next week he’s back on Putin’s side, it’s not worth trying to figure out what the U.S. really wants,” business owner Alyona told me.
For nearly four years, this city has been bombed virtually every day and night, sometimes for hours on end. Until that stops, until the shelling of communities across Ukraine stops, until Russian troops stop pushing westwards to grab more Ukrainian land, few here will believe that peace negotiations are making any real progress.
