In tense Kyiv, Ukrainians fear the war could be decided within months

KYIV — Coming to Kyiv from the United States is a bracing experience. Russia’s war with Ukraine has become a familiar part of the political debate in America. Democrats promise to stand with Ukraine; former president Donald Trump declares that he could end the war in a day. But it all has an air of abstraction, an ongoing conversation that could easily keep on going. But in Ukraine, the mood is raw, tense and urgent. This is a different city than the one I visited around this time in 2022 and 2023. The situation in Ukraine is critical, and the next few months might well determine the outcome of this war.

Attending the annual Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv, I’ve always found the city surprisingly normal, with a prevailing feeling of safety. No longer. The number of Russian aerial attacks has gone up substantially. Few missiles get through, but the psychological effect is intense. The night before I arrived, dozens of air-raid sirens pierced the night, and residents said they could hear the booms — mostly not of missiles but of antimissile batteries.

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