After three years of grinding war, many of Ukraine’s partners are pushing for a cease-fire with Russia. But Ukrainians remain deeply resistant to these calls for negotiation, not only out of a sense of patriotism but also “because they know there is little chance of survival under Moscow’s rule,” writes the journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs.
Even now, with Ukraine facing mounting casualties and ammunition shortages, “most Ukrainians see continuing to fight as incomparably better than the terror of Russian occupation,” Gumenyuk writes. Moscow’s control over captured Ukrainian territory isn’t just about land—it’s about systematic destruction of Ukrainian society through “human rights abuses, political repression, and war crimes.” As Ukrainians know and the West must learn, she warns, “Russian control over any part of Ukraine subverts and corrodes Ukrainian sovereignty everywhere.”
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