Destroyed houses remain after Russian bombing on December 17, 2025 Donald Trump thinks peace in Ukraine has “never been closer” after weeks of panicked diplomacy – but that is a far from universal view. The US president has been desperate to get a deal over the line ever since he returned to office in January, even if it means rewarding Russia for its aggression. European allies have been trying to keep the unpredictable American leader on side – and simultaneously preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty. All the while, Vladimir Putin is playing for time while his grinding offensive gradually accumulates more Ukrainian land. With so much US interest in the peace process – and amplified European warnings about the threat from Moscow – the future of Ukraine seems to have on a knife edge. So what can we expect in 2026? More Delicate Diplomacy Experts agree that the outcome of the war will be decided by international diplomacy, not on the battlefield. Plenty of talks have already taken place over 2025 – Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy keeps visiting his European counterparts to hold onto their support and remind them of the wider threat Putin poses to the continent. He also keeps visiting Trump to prove he is willing to negotiate a peace settlement, and to try to keep the US in Ukraine’s corner. The US administrations has also arranged to meet or speak to Putin multiple times this year. Senior Trump officials seem to keep falling for Russian claims that Moscow is ready for peace – it just requires Ukraine’s demilitarisation and more land. And that sparks panic in Europe, leading to yet more summits. These meetings have therefore just been “spinning in circles and not actually producing any results,” according to an associate fellow of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia, Keir Giles. He told HuffPost UK these debates have now settled into a “predictable cycle” which could be expected to continue into the new year. “There are no points for discussion because the objectives of the two sides remain as incompatible as ever,” he explained. “Russia wants to destroy Ukraine, Ukraine wants to survive. There’s not a lot of room for compromise between those two.” However, Giles added that with each iteration, “Russia scores a diplomatic success with the assistance of the US” – like the proposed cap on Ukraine’s military, an idea which only appeared for the first time in Trump’s leaked 28-point peace plan last month, which seems to come from the Kremlin. Similarly, an associate fellow from think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Natia Seskuria , said she was “pessimistic” about any peace deal talk and warned the war is likely to continue for some time. A Sticky Frontline Russia continues to hold a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign land, but is trying to push forward for more. The Kremlin also keeps confidently asserting it has capacity to seize such territory by force if it is not handed over diplomatically. As the Institute for Studying War’s Russian deputy team lead Christina Harward said: “The Kremlin is hoping that Ukraine capitulates now to Russia’s demands out of fear of what could come in 2026.” But, she noted the “battlefield realities” suggest Russia will not be able to seize the whole of the Donetsk – a contested area in eastern Ukraine – in the coming months, as the Kremlin has long implied. She told HuffPost UK: “Russian forces are advancing at a foot pace across the entire front. Even their relatively quicker advances are still nowhere near the tempo and pace of advances we saw at the start of the war. “These slow advances are coming at huge manpower and material costs.” She added that Ukraine has “heavily fortified” population centres in the Donetsk region to the east which Putin will struggle to break though because they are “significantly larger than any of the settlements and villages that Russia has taken in 2023, 2024, and 2025.” “This will not be an easy undertaking for Russia by any means,” she added. Meanwhile, RUSI’s Seskuria predicted Putin would not even have control over the Donbas to the east of Ukraine by 2027 or 2028. Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends annual special televised question-and-answer session and year-end news conference scheduled to take place at the Gostiny Dvor trade and exhibition centre in Russia, Moscow on December 19, 2025. Will Trump Walk Away? One of the major fears hanging over the whole conflict is whether or not the US president will follow through on his occasional threat and remove himself from the diplomatic process now. Giles said that could work to Ukraine’s benefit, because it means “the US will no longer be attempting to win the war for Russia”. However, that could jeopardise American support for Europe, which would be “catastrophic for the whole continent”. And that is a real risk, according to Giles, noting Trump has form for moving between objectives and could easily be distracted by other international disputes. It would also be difficult for Europe to fill any void left by Trump, according to Seskuria, particularly if the States stopped sharing intelligence. Director of the Civil Safety and Security Unit at the University of Leicester , Dr Simon Bennett, also told HuffPost UK that Trump’s sympathies lie with Putin not Zelenskyy, because he is an “admirer of authoritarian leaders”. He tore into the idea that the US could offer up firm security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal – something Trump officials promised earlier this month. He said: “Given the fact that the US and Russia are now aligned, it is reasonable to conclude that any security guarantees offered by the United States will be worthless.” President Donald Trump attends a lunch with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Washington. How Long Can Ukraine – And Zelenskyy – Last? There is a ticking clock over Ukraine’s war efforts, too, as its defence funds start to deplete. The EU agreed to give the country a €90 billion loan, interest-free, last week, but that’s still not quite enough – Ukraine needs an estimated €137 billion to continue fighting for the next two years. But the bloc stopped short of using €200 billion of frozen Russian assets to fund the war amid fears from Belgium – where most of the assets are held – of any subsequent legal consequences from Russia. The longer the war goes on, the more Russia extends its “Russification” strategy, whereby it effectively tries to wipe out Ukrainian culture and language in occupied areas. There’s also growing questions over Zelenskyy’s future as Ukraine’s president. The country’s elections have been postponed because of the martial law implemented ever since Putin’s invasion in February 2022. However, Trump has ignored these facts, even calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and falsely blaming him for starting the war. Seskuria told HuffPost UK it was possible the Ukrainian president could offer to set up an election after a peace deal as a bargaining chip to stop Trump from pushing Zelenskyy into an unfair peace deal. However, she warned: “I just don’t see [any such election] happening during the active wartime.” What Does Europe Need To Do? The continent has definitely become more active in supporting Ukraine since Trump returned to the Oval Office – but for many experts, it’s still not enough. Giles said: “Ukraine’s chances and prospects and condition have been getting steadily worse since the end of 2022, primarily because Ukraine’s coalition backers have successively discarded, ignored or rejected all of the chances to make Ukraine’s situation better.” He called on Europe to be more “proactive instead of passive and responsive to what Russia is doing”. RUSI’s Seskuria also suggested that the EU could come to some form of consensus in the future over Russian frozen assets. Meanwhile, Tan Dhesi, the chair of the Commons’ defence committee, told HuffPost UK he and his fellow MPs are urging the government to “reject entirely the Russian concept of peace, which includes Ukrainian sacrifice of territory and so-called neutrality”. “It is the role of the international community to stand against the endorsement of any settlement that merely reflects the demands of President Putin, or rewards aggression, annexation, or the violation of the most basic norms of international law,” he noted. Is There Much Hope? The grim facts of the Ukraine war paint a bleak picture for a beleaguered country facing yet another difficult year. Giles said the diplomatic efforts certainly looked “precarious” even though some of the “worst case scenarios” have been rejected in early peace talks. But looking beyond 2026 might be even more unsettling, according to Dr Bennett. He claimed: “It is likely that in five to ten years Europe will find itself at war with Russia. Should that war come to pass, it is possible America won’t lift a finger.” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy Related... Putin Launches 2-Word Playground Insult At European Leaders While Blaming Them For Ukraine War Putin Ally Claims Trump Thinks Ukraine Will 'Cease To Exist' If War Continues Putin's Top Diplomat Revives One Of Russia's Most Toxic Claims And Turns It Against The UK