With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky’s options look bad or worse

KYIV — As Russia steps up airstrikes and once again advances on the battlefield in Ukraine more than two years into its bloody invasion, there is no end to the fighting in sight. And President Volodymyr Zelensky’s options for what to do next — much less how to win the war — range from bad to worse.

Zelensky has said Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all its territory, including land that Russia has controlled since 2014. But with the battle lines changing little in the last year, militarily retaking the swaths of east and south Ukraine that Russia now occupies — about 20 percent of the country — appears increasingly unlikely.

Negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war — something Zelensky has rejected as long as Russian troops remain on Ukrainian land — is politically toxic. The Ukrainian public is hugely opposed to surrendering territory, and Putin has shown no willingness to accept anything short of Ukraine’s capitulation to his demands.

The status quo is awful. With the fight now a grinding stalemate, Ukrainians are dying on the battlefield daily. But a cease-fire is also a nonstarter, Ukrainians say, because it would just give the Russians time to replenish their forces.

Ukrainian and Western officials view Zelensky as largely stuck. Aid from the United States, Ukraine’s most important military backer, has been stalled for months by Republicans in Congress. Previously approved modern fighter jets — the U.S.-made F-16 — are expected to enter combat later this year — but in limited quantity, meaning they will not be a game changer. NATO countries are still exercising restraint in their assistance, evidenced by the recent uproar after French President Emmanuel Macron said European nations should not rule out sending troops.

“How will Zelensky get out of this situation? I have no idea,” said a Ukrainian lawmaker who, like other officials and diplomats interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the highly sensitive politics. “And of course it concerns me.”

Most tricky for Zelensky will be managing his own country’s expectations. Support for him among Ukrainians remains high, but after two years of war and steep casualties, the “solidarity is fraying,” a Western diplomat in Kyiv said.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, a professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and former government minister, said the fight could drag on for many years. “This is an unpleasant thought, but when some people say it might take decades, no one challenges that,” Mylovanov said.

This was supposed to be an election year for Zelensky, but Ukraine’s constitution prohibits elections under martial law, and some officials here worry that Russia will try to cast Zelensky as an illegitimate ruler once he is serving longer than his elected five-year term — despite the inherent hypocrisy in Putin’s own repeated disregard for term limits.

Zelensky will also have to live up to his own promise — which he restates regularly — of returning Ukraine to its 1991 borders, including Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally invaded and claimed as its own 10 years ago.

“Smart people know that’s not realistic,” the Ukrainian lawmaker said, adding: The political leadership “needed to adjust this rhetoric at some point.”

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