Futureless: Hardly any hope for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine

Futureless: Hardly any hope for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine

CNN reports – Could a ceasefire agreement prove to be a disastrous masquerade for the Ukraine turn out? In Ukrainian frontline bunkers and the ruins of besieged cities, this question is urgent and omnipresent. The ever-present fatigue cries out for peace, while facing a precious learned skepticism Russia continues to dominate.

The worries of the Ukrainian front-line soldiers

The fears are diverse. Will a ceasefire last? Will Russia just use it to re-equip and attack again? Is Moscow even interested in a ceasefire when it is gaining ground? And will Ukraine's allies continue to provide military support if they feel diplomacy has silenced the guns?

Insight into the ongoing conflict

The screens in front of Volodymyr Sablyn, a battalion commander with the 66th Mechanized Brigade, tell the harrowing story of Ukraine's modern but archaically brutal battlefield. Small, inexpensive drones fly over the shrapnel-marked trenches around Lyman — a mix of frozen mud, trash, bunkers and the ugly term “beetroot” for human remains that cannot be recovered.

“If there is a ceasefire now, it will only be worse for us,” Sablyn told CNN this week. “Because the enemy will regenerate, form new military units, regroup and attack again.” Sablyn joined the army in 2015 when Russian separatists took the town of Debaltseve in Donbas despite an agreed ceasefire. Now the ceasefires imposed a decade ago, which merely served as a cover for further Russian military advances, are living proof of the urgent need for caution at the negotiating table.

The military situation at the front

The region Sablyn commands has been characterized by relentless Russian attacks and an acceptance of casualties that has exploited Kyiv's key weakness: its lack of infantry. While Sablyn's forces fire mortars in the Lyman front area, Moscow's troops advance on an important military base in the south - Pokrovsk. The pace of encirclement is alarming, and once this city falls, Russia will have few large settlements between its forces and the important cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia.

Hope for international support

Hope is a crucial currency in this region. One aspect repeatedly raised by Ukrainian officials is the idea that European or NATO troops could offer Ukraine security guarantees through their specific presence on the front lines - a kind of peacekeeping force. A European defense official recently told CNN that there are "active discussions" about similar support measures. A ceasefire, followed by European NATO member states securing a demilitarized zone, is a central part of a peace plan outlined by the new U.S.-Ukraine envoy, Gen. Keith Kellogg, in a policy paper in April.

Realistic assessment of the situation

"If NATO could send troops to Ukraine," Sablyn explained, "that would be a guarantee of security in Ukraine. Because Russia - no matter how many times they say that they are not afraid of anyone - is afraid of America, is afraid of NATO as a whole." Nevertheless, given the twilight that is settling over the forward artillery units of the 66th Brigade, this idea seems fraught with insurmountable risks. The threat from Russian drones is so acute that artillery units can be reached as the sun dips below the horizon and the light fades.

The sensitivities of the civilian population

A commander accompanying us checks his handheld monitor to see if the Russian surveillance drones have left. We pause for ten minutes until the “all-clear” is given, and then sprint across the rocky fields to a tree line where old artillery pieces regularly fire “suppressive fire” at the Russians. Peace is something to be taken seriously here, and the men who live underground are skeptical.

“The chances of a ceasefire are only 30%,” says a soldier named Viktor. "Because the situation at the front is such that we can't see how there can be a ceasefire. It's all very difficult." Another, Andriy, adds: "I think the chances are 40%. The other side wins, takes territory. And we essentially have nothing to say."

The increasing openness of the soldiers, who only repeated studied declarations of victory months ago, is also reflected in some exhausted civilians from the front-line cities. Larissa, 72, strolls slowly through the ravaged streets of Lyman, her gold teeth shining between the shell-stained concrete.

The reality of the civilian population

"We've been hit 19 times today... 19 times since this morning," she tells CNN. "My husband counts and I take sleeping pills. And then he wakes me up and says, 'Well, have you counted?'" Tears well up in her eyes as she is asked why she hasn't walked out of the city, which was first captured during the Russian invasion in 2022, then liberated by Ukrainian troops later that year and is now once again under heavy siege from Putin's men, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the outskirts.

"Here I ran barefoot; there I swam in the river," she says, gesturing toward the edges of the city. "I'm 72; I don't want to (go away). All my three brothers are buried here, all my aunts, uncles, father, mother. I can't leave." She has little sympathy for Kyiv, describes the Ukrainian soldiers she meets in supermarkets as unkempt and says that a friend's family of seven left Lyman two weeks ago and were housed in a stable in the nearby city of Poltava. "A stable! But it was clean and there was some hay."

Larissa says Trump will be no different from Biden, who she heard on television tried to buy parts of eastern Ukraine for his son, likely reflecting false Russian propaganda. Their hopes lie with the decision-makers in the Kremlin. "No one is going to solve this. Only Putin will, when he says, 'That's enough, I've already killed so many people.'" She nods when asked if peace through Putin is the only way forward.

The long shadows of war

Behind her, a bus picks up locals who continue to come to the desolate city to go shopping. No one wants to talk except the driver, Dima, who says he was in Russia when the Russians first invaded to stay with relatives and recently returned. He says he is used to destruction and hopes for peace. "It's all politics. Nothing depends on us. How it is decided, that's how it will be."

For others, there is a decade of turmoil and loss. Inesa, 60, sits alone in the central square of Slovyansk, where a decade ago Russian proxy separatist forces seized the local administration building and fought off the Ukrainian army over repeated ceasefires, agreements and Russian advances.

"A decade ago, despite the separatist chaos, we still had jobs and hope. Now only my mother and I are left in Slovyansk, a key Russian target in Donetsk; the rest of my family has been scattered across the world by the war," she says. “There is no future now,” she adds. "We don't see them. Who does this? I just want it to stop. Stop the bombs."