Another New Year at War: Ukraine’s Troops Doubt It Will Be the Last

After a year of Russian advances, the goal for 2026 is simply to survive, said one officer in eastern Ukraine. “It’s hard to make any plans,” he said.

As midnight neared and the New Year’s countdown began, the Ukrainian officer kept his eyes trained on a wall of screens with video feeds.

He had multiple drones in the air, scanning for Russian forces and ready to strike.

It may have been the start of a new year, but for those on the front line, the officer said in the first moments of 2026, this was simply another day.

For many soldiers in his battalion, known as the “Da Vinci Wolves,” this was not the moment to make big resolutions. Russian forces are advancing, recent rounds of peace negotiations have sputtered, and they do not see the war ending anytime soon. The goal for the coming year, one soldier said, was simply to survive.

“It’s hard to make any plans,” agreed the officer, who goes by the call sign Sam, when asked what 2026 would hold.

This year will be Ukraine’s fourth under Russia’s full-scale invasion. Few soldiers fighting in eastern Ukraine seem to think it will be the last.

At the start of 2025, then-President-elect Donald J. Trump was boasting that he could end the war in 24 hours. In February, President Trump was berating President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office, threatening to cut off aid and exhibiting what many Ukrainians saw as sympathies with Moscow.

The months that followed featured many twists and turns. Negotiations were on, then off. The U.S.-Ukraine relationship ran from hot to cold and back.

In the meantime, the war itself was changing. Drones came to dominate the battlefield, making troop movements far more dangerous. Russian forces switched from large-scale assaults to using smaller groups of soldiers. Ukraine, ever outmanned, was also forced to adapt and stayed on the defensive.

Unlike the whiplash on the diplomatic front, though, the front line moved only at a snail’s pace. However slow and bloody, the calculus favored Russian forces, who since the summer started advancing more quickly. That, analysts say, convinced President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he had the upper hand in the latest efforts to broker peace.

He repeatedly suggested that Ukraine should bend to his demands before the war got even worse. Among those demands was for Kyiv to relinquish the territory it still held in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, which Mr. Putin has long coveted and has been the nexus of the fighting.

Russian forces there pushed forward and then into the city of Pokrovsk. Ukraine dug in, diverting troops to defend the city and the few around it still under Kyiv’s control.

That, analysts and soldiers say, gave Russian forces an opening to exploit and advance more quickly elsewhere, namely in the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine. The same proved true in eastern parts of the Dnipro region, said a soldier from Ukraine’s 68th Jager Brigade who hunkered down there on the last day of 2025.

“They said they only needed the Donetsk region, yet look how many kilometers they’ve taken in the Dnipro region already,” he said of Russian forces. Like most of those interviewed, the soldier asked to be identified only by his call sign, Dyak, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.

Sitting near a small stove, Dyak said this New Year’s Day — his fifth in the military — did not feel like a holiday, just “simply the end of the month.”

He put little stock in the current peace efforts, saying he was certain that the war would drag on for at least two more years.

“If Trump can end the war,” Dyak added, “then let him do it faster.”

The U.S. president had first set a deadline of Thanksgiving for Ukraine to agree to a proposal to end the war. Then it was Christmas. Three days after Christmas, Mr. Trump stood alongside Mr. Zelensky and eschewed any timeline.

Mr. Putin has made no indication that he intends to end the war. Russia instead seems to be escalating, threatening in recent days to harden its negotiating stance and potentially re-up Mr. Putin’s maximalist demands.

Those demands, however, are nonstarters, according to a Ukrainian drone pilot with the call sign Shanghai. Loading into an armored vehicle that would take him to spend another New Year’s on the front line, Shanghai rejected the idea of any Ukrainian territorial concessions.

“We want a full victory — to take back all of Donbas,” he said, referring to the eastern part of the country that includes Donetsk.

A soldier with the call sign Bodya, who was heading out with Shanghai, was reluctant to predict how their New Year’s would be, saying it all depended on Russian forces. If they launch fireworks — not the festive kind — then “we will try to arrange some fireworks of our own for them,” Bodya said.

At around the same time, two of their comrades — with the call signs Price and Chernihiv — were returning from a rotation at the front line.

The first thing Chernihiv, 35, wanted was a shower and a shave. Price, 26, was craving KFC.

They said the rotation had been pretty regular: drone reconnaissance flights, strikes and supply deliveries. But Russian forces were more active in the run-up to New Year’s, Chernihiv noted.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “Maybe they got an order to get some victory.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, warned last week that Russia’s aim for 2026 was to seize all of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Moscow also will seek to drive farther into the Dnipro region, he told the Suspilne news outlet last week.

On New Year’s Eve, the drone teams under watch at Sam’s command, in the direction of Novopavlivka, were working to prevent that.

Starting around 7 p.m., there was a flurry of activity. Strike. Strike. Drop supplies. Strike.

Next to Sam and watching the screens were four others, working in 12-hour shifts. When one signed off at around 10 p.m., his replacement asked about the mood.

“Not great,” the soldier replied. “See you in a year.”

Soon the long table in the command center was cleared of weapons and laptops. Small plastic plates of mackerel, sausage, cheese, cabbage and Ukrainian delicacies were laid out, along with cups and a bottle of nonalcoholic champagne.

Maj. Serhii Filimonov, 31, the battalion commander, said that while the meal could not replace a night with family or friends, he had wanted to bring some cheer to the command post.

It had been a tough year for Ukraine’s military, he said, adding, “We are all tired.”

Still, he said it was important to remember that Russia had failed to achieve its key objectives for the year, like capturing Pokrovsk or other key cities.

“When we see the state of the enemy and their actions,” Major Filimonov said, “it gives us faith that everything will be OK.”

But he, too, was reluctant to make any resolutions, saying that long-term planning amid the war was a “painful subject” for Ukrainians.

Major Filimonov has two children — an 8-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter, who he said were “growing up without me.”

“I only hope to finish the war before my son grows up,” he said, “so that he doesn’t have to go fight.”

At around 11 p.m., he asked for the television to be tuned to Mr. Zelensky’s New Year’s address. Some moved to watch, but not Sam or the others watching the screens.

Midnight brought a toast with Coca-Cola and the alcohol-free champagne. Sam was swigging red energy drinks, but moved to join the others. Messages coming over the radio stopped him.

“Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year.”

“Keep holding the line, guys. Keep holding the line.”

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