But Ukraine is also deeply fatigued by war. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and wounded since the full-scale invasion began. People are craving an end to suffering, particularly in the Donbas.
“You ask about the surrender of the Donetsk region, well, I measure this war not in kilometres but in human lives,” said Yevhen Tkachov, 56, an emergency rescue worker in the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk.
“I’m not ready to give tens of thousands of lives for several thousand square kilometres,” he said. “Life is more important than territory.”
For some, this is what it comes down to in the end. Land versus life. It leaves President Zelensky “at a crossroads with no good route in front of him”, said Volodmyr Ariev, a Ukrainian MP from the opposition European Solidarity party.
“We don’t have enough forces to continue the war for an unlimited time,” Ariev said. “But if Zelensky were to concede this land it would be not only a breakdown of our constitution, it could have the hallmarks of treason.”
And yet, it is not clear in Ukraine by what mechanism such an agreement could even be reached. Any formal handover of the nation’s territory requires the approval of the parliament and a referendum of the people.
More likely would be a de-facto surrender of control, with no formal recognition of the territory as Russian. But even in that event, the process is not well understood, said Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun.
“There is no real understanding as to what the procedure should be,” she said. “Does the president simply sign the agreement? Does it have to be the government? The parliament? There is no legal procedure set up because, you know, the constitution writers didn’t think about this.”
Things may become more clear after Zelensky speaks with Trump in Washington on Monday – the Ukrainian leader’s first visit to the White House since a disastrous clash in the Oval Office in February. Amid the unhappiness left by the Alaska summit, there was one possible glimmer of good news for Ukraine.
Trump appeared to reverse his position on security guarantees after the summit, suggesting he was ready to join Europe in offering Ukraine military protection from future Russian attacks.