"Why is everyone pinning their hopes on Trump?" Lyudmila Paribus is holding her breath at the thought that Donald Trump, as US president, could end the war in Ukraine. "I don't pin any hopes on him," the 20-year-old student told Reuters in central Kiev. "Ultimately, it all depends on us", she added, BTA reports.
Her skepticism is shared by many Ukrainians, who have little faith in Donald Trump's promises to quickly conclude a peace deal after he enters the White House next Monday.
"Our fate is in our own hands," said Marharita Deputat, a 29-year-old sales manager, adding: "We can't rely on anyone else.".
Hannah Khorbacheva, 55, is not tying her family's future to negotiations to end the conflict, which has been going on for almost three years after Russia's full-scale invasion.
The owner of a thriving bakery was forced to flee her home in the Donetsk region a decade ago after the conflict between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine erupted and the subsequent collapse of two internationally brokered peace agreements.
She does not rule out the possibility of leaving her new home in the city of Dnipro if Vladimir Putin's large Russian army continues to advance on the southeastern city.
"He will not stop in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia or Dnipropetrovsk regions," she told Reuters. "He will continue on" she added.
Although skeptical about the chances of a deal, she still believes that the new US president has some chance of becoming an icon of world peace if he delivers on his promises. "Trump has the opportunity to go down in history as the savior of a huge country," said Khorbacheva.
Indeed, not everyone dismisses the prospect of Trump helping to expedite a ceasefire; Since his election, more than a third of Ukrainians believe the war will end by the end of 2025, according to a December poll of about 1,100 people by the research firm "Gradus Research", up more than a quarter from six months earlier.
The poll found that 31% of respondents expected the war to last "for years", while another 31% said it was hard to say.
The chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's foreign policy committee, Oleksandr Merezhko, also said Trump could cement his legacy by bringing peace and security to Ukraine.
"Ukraine must become a success story for Trump," Merezhko told Reuters. "He could go down in history as the winner," he added.
The negotiating positions between the two warring parties remain far apart, however. Trump's advisers now acknowledge that the war in Ukraine will take months or even longer, a clear contradiction of the reality of his biggest foreign policy promise to reach a peace agreement on his first day in office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing hard for an invitation to join NATO, which he sees as the best way to deter future Russian aggression. He and other officials fear that any agreement that falls short of a strong alliance with Washington would allow the Kremlin to wait and possibly retaliate.
"They will strengthen their military capabilities to come back", Alexei Reznikov, a former defense minister and a participant in peace talks with Russia, told Reuters. "They will want to continue what they started in 2014. and continued into 2022," he added.
While Putin has said he is open to discussing a ceasefire agreement with Trump, he has ruled out making any major territorial concessions and is insisting that Kiev abandon its ambitions to join NATO, five sources told Reuters in November.
"A new military adventure"
Two ultimately failed ceasefire agreements forced Khorbacheva to flee her first home a decade ago. Ukraine blames the failure in part on the lack of stable Western military support. It highlights the dangers and pitfalls of any peace deal.
These agreements, known as the Minsk agreements after the Belarusian capital where they were signed in 2014-2015, quickly collapsed amid accusations from both sides of violations. While large-scale fighting subsided after 2015, drawing the contours of a frozen conflict, there were sporadic clashes before Russia’s invasion three years ago.
Khorbacheva’s family fled Gorlovka due to the fighting 10 years ago and resettled in Toretsk, where she began her food business. After full-scale war broke out in 2022, they moved again, leaving Toretsk just before Russian shelling damaged their bakery. The city is now on the verge of being taken over by Russian forces.
Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who signed the Minsk agreements while in power and is now a political opponent of Zelensky, agreed with the current leader that Ukraine's membership in NATO is of key importance.
"We have already been to this stage, and therefore we know that nothing could be as effective and secure this time and in the future until Ukraine is invited and joins NATO," he told Reuters. "This in itself would prevent a new military adventure by Russia, which seeks peace, not power, domination," Poroshenko added.
On the battlefield, both sides are trying to improve their positions ahead of any peace talks, with the outnumbered Ukrainian military fighting to hold off Russian advances in the east of the country while also trying to hold onto positions in Russia's Kursk region.
Even if a ceasefire is reached, it will be a major challenge to maintain it, said Samir Puri, research director at the Center for Global Governance and Security at the London-based think tank Chatham House. He said the question of who would monitor and enforce the ceasefire remained open.
Roman Kostenko, a lawmaker who commanded special forces units on the front lines until his election to parliament in 2019, said that in his experience, not much can be done if one side opens fire on the battlefield and the other responds.
"I am a person who has witnessed dozens of ceasefires, maybe 20", he said. "Each of these ceasefires with Russia lasted no more than five minutes," Kostenko added.