Year three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may be Zelenskiy’s toughest yet

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has an unenviable task over the coming months. As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, the Ukrainian president has a very difficult balancing act to manage.

Ukrainian society is exhausted by the war and international support is splintering, leading to a critical shortage of ammunition at the front. At the same time, most Ukrainians are not willing to countenance the idea of a peace deal, given that there would be few mechanisms to force Russia to abide by it, and would risk merely giving Moscow time to replenish its forces and strike Ukraine again.

At a set-piece press conference on Sunday, a day after the second anniversary of the invasion, Zelenskiy underlined the stakes over the next year.

“The first year was just survival, utter survival … The second year was resilience, resistance … The third year will be decisive. It’s a year of challenges from inside and outside.”

Zelenskiy admitted that much about Ukraine’s future depends on these outside factors, and particularly the mood in Washington. “The decisive moment will be the elections in the United States and then we will be able to understand what is going to happen next,” he said, perhaps the closest he can come to publicly acknowledging that a Trump presidency is likely to be an absolute disaster for Ukraine.

On the massive US aid package currently stalled in Congress, Zelenskiy could only say the following: “I am sure there will be a positive decision, because otherwise it will leave me wondering what kind of world we are living in.”

As well as these external problems, to a large part out of his control, it may also be a difficult year for Zelenskiy internally. While he still has high approval ratings among Ukrainians, he is no longer seen as untouchable, and political competition is returning to Ukraine.

Two years ago, when Russia launched the full-scale invasion, Zelenskiy’s refusal to leave Kyiv and his video messages of defiance inspired many in Ukraine and abroad. Recently, however, there have been suggestions that the Zelenskiy team are still in the “bunker mode” of the early days of the war, governing with a small circle. Several sources have said that in recent meetings the president has appeared exhausted, after two years of leading a country at war.

On Sunday, he appeared determined to show he was still in control of the narrative and full of life. There were even occasional flashes of his former life as a comedic actor. When asked by one journalist what he’d say to Vladimir Putin if the Russian president called him this evening, Zelenskiy replied quickly: “He won’t, because he doesn’t have a mobile.”

However, the few times Zelenskiy was pushed on internal politics, he went on the defensive. When a Japanese journalist asked whether he would finally give a coherent reason for why he fired previous army commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi, widely seen as partly motivated by irritation at Zaluzhnyi’s high approval ratings, Zelenskiy curtly said it was an internal matter and moved on. He was similarly dismissive, answering a question about a recent scandal involving the surveillance of journalists by the SBU security agency.

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On rallying the world to continue its support for Ukraine, he remains a convincing orator, and he repeatedly underlined the stakes during what could prove to be the most difficult year of the war so far. For Kyiv, the stakes remain existential.

“We need courage, we need resilience to survive. This year will define the format for the ending of this war,” said Zelenskiy.