After 1,000 days of conflict, the Ukrainian army is tired of fighting on many fronts, Kiev is surrounded by frequent attacks by drones and missiles, while officials prepare for Donald Trump's return to the White House in January next year.
To promote Ukraine, President Joe Biden is believed to have given Kiev a green light to use US missiles to strike deep inside Russia. But a drastic change in policy could be reversed when Trump returns to the White House in January, and military experts warn that it will not be enough to change the course of the 33-month war.
According to Reuters, thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been killed, more than 6 million are living as refugees abroad and the population has decreased by a quarter since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Now, the return of Donald Trump, who has vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 24 hours without saying it any way, raising questions about the future of US military aid and the Western unified front against Russia, on the other hand, raises the prospect of negotiations to end the war.
The sense of escalation has become clear as Moscow and Kiev push to improve their battlefield positions ahead of any talks.
Ukraine has deployed some of the most elite to try to keep Russia's Kursk region after capturing it in August as a matter of course. Kiev said Moscow had concentrated 50,000 troops there, while Kremlin forces had also made their fastest advances in eastern Ukraine since 2022 - and also increased pressure in the northeast and southeast.
In addition to the US allowing Ukraine to attack military targets inside Russia with US-supplied weapons, financial aid and external weapons are also very important.
Despite two consecutive years of moderate growth, Ukraine's economy still only reached 78% of its scale before the conflict, with GDP falling by a third in 2022. Ukraine's once-huge steel and grain industries have been hit hard.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine must do its best to end the war by next year through diplomatic means. But he has resolutely rejected any negotiations on a ceasefire before appropriate security guarantees for Ukraine are available.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin stressed that Russia's goals have remained unchanged since President Vladimir Putin said in June that Ukraine must abandon its ambitions to join NATO and withdraw from four regions that have been annexed by Russia.
Meanwhile, President Zelensky has spoken out against the idea of resuming Minsk-style peace talks.
"We want to warn everyone: there will be no Minsk 3; what we need is real peace," Zelensky said.
The Minsk 1 Agreement was signed by representatives of the Trilateral contact Group on Ukraine (including Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE) on September 5, 2014 in Minsk, aiming to end tensions in the Donbass region.
The Minsk 2 deal was pushed by the Normandy Four Ministries of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany in the Belarus capital in February 2015, aiming to end a 10-month bloody conflict in eastern Ukraine.
