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For nearly four years, the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk has been a stronghold — a key logistical hub for the military, and for the population, a literal and symbolic fortress that stands firm against Russian pressure that continues to approach from the south and east.
But under the Trump administration the latest vision of peaceUkraine would be forced to withdraw its troops from the city and other areas of Donetsk it still controls. According to the alleged compromise, that area would be turned into a special economic zone.
“It’s just absurd,” said Maksym Lysenko, an entrepreneur from the now decimated Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, who opened a store in Kramatorsk this summer to sell patriotic clothing.
“People were dying, shedding their blood, and what then, simply give up the territory?”
When Zelensky was asked last week what painful concessions Kiev would be willing to make for peace, he floated the idea of a referendum, saying that Ukrainians should decide on that.
Lysenko did not see the proposal as a way to gauge public appetite for the deal, but instead saw it as Zelensky’s attempt to appease US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked him, calling him without respect and ingratitude.
“(Zelensky) simply said that so as not to annoy the American president again,” Lysenko said. “He said, ‘OK, you want a referendum; well, then, let’s have a referendum.’
Voting
With Russian positions now less than 20 kilometers from Kramatorsk’s borders and the city under constant threat from drones and missiles, some of the tens of thousands of remaining residents are making the difficult decision to leave, although the city’s future remains at the center of ongoing negotiations.
In the meantime, Trump, who was in a hurry to settle, accused Zelenski of clinging to power and asked how long Ukraine can remain a democracy if it does not hold elections. In response, the Ukrainian president said the country is ready for elections, provided the US and other allies provide security.
The proposal is again seen as a way to try and politely resist US pressure to cede territory to Russia, leaving any decision ultimately to the Ukrainian public, which is strongly against the idea.
Polls showed that while a majority of Ukrainians favor a ceasefire agreement that would freeze the war along the front lines, three-quarters would not support a deal that would make major concessions. This includes the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donbas region.
“People are tired; people want peace. People are open to concessions, but not to surrender,” said Anton Hrushetskyi, executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
His organization makes regular phone calls to the public throughout the Ukrainian territory still controlled by Kyiv. The last survey was conducted from November 26 to December 13 and included 547 respondents.
Polling the public
Hrushetskyi told CBC News in a Zoom interview that it was difficult to formulate questions to gauge public support for a possible peace deal, because it was unclear what was actually on the table.
However, he says that the results of the latest survey showed that Ukrainians are ready to “endure the war as long as it takes to achieve some decent conditions” for peace.
He says that attitude remained dominant during the war, but what has changed is the level of trust in the US. Only 21 percent of Ukrainians trust Washington, down from 41 percent at the same time last year.
Khrushetskii says that Zelenskiy’s idea of a referendum was “a kind of show” to the US that Ukraine is acting according to Trump’s demands, in fact its implementation would be logistically difficult, as it would first require a cease-fire, which Russia has repeatedly rejected.
Russia also rejected the referendum proposal. On December 12, Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, claimed that there could be no vote because “that area is Russian territory,” referring to the rest of Donbass.
Increased support for negotiations
However, Mikhail Alexseev, a political science professor at San Diego State University, thinks the idea is feasible. He says the referendum could be partially conducted by phone or online for remote areas.
However, he believes that Ukrainians would overwhelmingly oppose any plan that would require the country to hand over the rest of Donbass.
“I think that if the referendum were held today, they would not at all accept such proposals that Putin presented,” he said.
Roadmap of 28 points drawn up by the US and Russia and leaked last month, it was criticized by Ukraine and its European allies as Moscow’s wish list that would see Kiev give up territory, reduce the size of its military and abandon its NATO ambitions in exchange for security guarantees.
Ukraine said it was willing drop the goal of joining NATO, and that there has been real progress in creating strong security guarantees, but the issue of territory remains the most difficult.
Alexseev ran the joint research with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences for almost 10 years, and from 2021 he is examining a group of hundreds of Ukrainians.
He told CBC News in a Zoom interview that there has been a “significant softening of the territorial issue” and that a flurry of diplomatic meetings, which intensified over the summer, has increased support among Ukrainians for some sort of negotiated settlement.
But he says that at best there is talk of partial concessions.
“Zelenskyy is actually probably more conciliatory than Ukrainian society in these matters because he understands diplomacy,” he said.
“He understands the importance of relationships and the importance of military aid and a lot of the political issues associated with that.”
He says that for the Ukrainian public, anything that looks like capitulation would be “unconscionable”.
More and more residents are leaving
Back in Kramatorsk, Lysenko says more residents have left the city over the past month, as Ukraine suspended rail service to the frontline community in November due to security concerns.
In the summer, he opened his store with shelves full of shirts with the words “The sun will rise over a free Donbas.”
Ukrainian negotiators are meeting with US officials in Florida to discuss the details of Washington’s proposal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as Kiev faces pressure on the military and political fronts. Ukrainian MP Halyna Yanchenko tells Rosemary Barton Live what she hopes will make these talks different from previous negotiations.
He currently has no plans to leave, but is working to relocate some of his staff to Kyiv because of the “dangerous situation.”
After almost four years of war, he says everyone wants it to end, but he believes giving up territory is not a step towards peace.
“Russia wants all of Ukraine,” he said. Even if Donetsk is completely surrendered, in two or three years we will have a new war.
