For days, I had a feeling that something bad was about to happen. Something was looming over me like a ghost haunting my surroundings, trying to forewarn me of an impending doom. I walked to the basketball courts and circled the main parking lot a few times before returning to the library. Flurries started falling like ashes. My mouth was dry and suddenly pervaded by the taste of blood. When I walked into the library, my friends — Noah and David — who were sitting around the disk-shaped table, looked at me as if they saw the ghost above my head. David turned his screen towards me, with the CBC News headline: Explosions heard across Ukraine as Russia launches military attack.
As Ukraine enters its fourth year of resistance against Russian aggression, it remains trapped in so-called peace negotiations that have produced little but delay. Ever since the exposure of President Trump’s 28-point peace plan, which has been repeatedly cited as the Kremlin’s wish list, Russia has intensified its rampant offense against its neighbor. The initial peace plan demanded that Ukraine abandon territories such as Crimea and the Eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk — currently under Russian occupation — reduce its forces, and renounce any aspirations for joining NATO. Other notably conciliatory points include Russia’s reintegration into the G8 and the proposed equal division of electricity output from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, with 50% allocated to Russia and 50% to Ukraine.
These propositions were nothing short of preposterous to Ukrainians. Yet, Kyiv has shown incredible flexibility to whatever Washington imagines a peace plan with an aggressor state to be. Under continuous pressure from Trump, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even agreed to hold elections as soon as a ceasefire is reached. More importantly, the Ukrainian president has repeatedly voiced his nation’s willingness to freeze the frontline as a starting point for territorial negotiations.
In the meantime, Russia continues to weaponize winter by striking deep into Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. As the cold descended to -4 degrees Fahrenheit, thousands of civilians were left without electricity and heating. Ukraine, meanwhile, has focused on targeting Russian energy sites, oil refineries, and the arms industry, managing to “destroy or disable” $4 billion worth of Russian air defense in 2025.
Despite an average of 35,000 Russian casualties per month — according to the U.S.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies — Moscow still calls the war a special military operation. The think tank also notes that, in these four years, Russian forces have suffered more losses than any major power in any war since World War II, estimating 1.2 million casualties. On the other hand, approximately 600,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed or wounded or were missing. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported that Russian violence in Ukraine in 2025 resulted in 2,514 civilians killed and 12,142 injured. In terms of other numbers, Russia still occupies 20 percent of Ukraine; however, the progress they made in 2025 remains grim, as it accounts for no more than one percent according to the Institute for the Study of War. While Ukraine is not losing the war, it has been increasingly difficult to resist the Kremlin’s persistent attacks on a frontline that stretches over 700 miles across Ukraine.
Between 13 and 15 February, political leaders and civil organizations gathered in Germany for the 62nd Munich Security Conference. Four years ago in Munich, U.S. Vice President Harris warned that the world was standing in front of “a decisive moment in history” with U.S. intelligence reporting significant troop movement near Ukraine’s borders. This time, U.S. State Secretary Rubio warned Zelenskyy that the end of the war would likely require “hard” concessions. Is this the familiar American warning we saw four years ago but did not believe, foretelling what is to come? Or is it the U.S. now crafting Ukraine’s destiny by pressuring the victim rather than the aggressor?
I think back on the night from February 23 to 24. Those first moments of realizing this is real, that the fear I grew up with was now marching into Kyiv alongside Russian tanks. It was still too early at home to reach my parents. They would later tell me that, just like me, they had felt something heavy wandering above their heads like a dark, low cloud. I called Vitalii, the only Ukrainian at my boarding school. We slipped into an empty classroom and frantically searched for news from Ukrainian outlets. There was not much to know other than the sirens going off across Ukraine. We went outside, where big chunks of snow began falling over the bay ahead of us. We looked at the gleaming boats docked in Pedder Bay Marina. We didn’t speak much after that, though both of us ended up pursuing degrees in political studies, trying to make sense of what happened and what continues to happen.
~ Cristina Panaguta `26
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