On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away

Soldiers' skepticism over diplomatic peace efforts is rooted in months of what they see as broken U.S. promises to end the war quickly.

Recent suggestions by U.S. President Donald Trump that there will be some " swapping of territories" — and media reports that it would involve Ukrainian troops leaving the Donetsk region where they have fought for years defending every inch of land — have stirred confusion and rejection among the soldiers.

More likely than an end to the war, they say, is a brief pause in hostilities before Russia resumes the assault with greater force.

"At minimum, the result would be to stop active fighting — that would be the first sign of some kind of settlement," said soldier Dmytro Loviniukov of the 148th brigade. "Right now, that's not happening. And while these talks are taking place, they (the Russians) are only strengthening their positions on the front line."

Long war, no relief

On one artillery position, talk often turns to home. Many Ukrainian soldiers joined the army in the first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, leaving behind civilian jobs. Some thought they would serve only briefly. Others didn't think about the future — because at that moment, it didn't exist.

In the years since, many have been killed. Those who survived are in their fourth year of a grueling war, far removed from the civilian lives they once knew. With the war dragging on far longer than expected, there is no one to replace them as the Ukrainian army struggles with recruiting new people.

The army also cannot demobilize those who serve without risking the collapse of the front.

That is why soldiers watch for even the possibility of a pause in hostilities. When direct talks between Russia and Ukraine were held in Istanbul in May, the soldiers from the 148th brigade read the news with cautious hope, said a soldier with the call sign Bronson, who once worked as a tattoo artist.

Months later, hope has been replaced with dark humor. On the eve of a deadline that U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly gave Russian President Vladimir Putin — one that has since vanished from the agenda amid talk of Friday's meeting in Alaska — Russian fire roared every minute for hours. Soldiers joked that the shelling was because the deadline was "running out."

"We are on our land. We have no way back," said Loviniukov, the commander of the artillery group. "We stand here because there is no choice. No one else will come here to defend us."

Training for what's ahead

Dozens of kilometers from the Zaporizhzhia region, north to the Donetsk area, heavy fighting grinds on toward Pokrovsk — now the epicenter of fighting.

Once home to about 60,000 people, the city has been under sustained Russian assault for months. The Russians have formed a pocket around Pokrovsk, though Ukrainian troops still hold the city and street fighting has yet to begin. Reports of Russian saboteurs entering the city started to appear almost daily, but the military says those groups have been neutralized.

Ukrainian soldiers of the Spartan brigade push through drills with full intensity, honing their skills for the battlefield in the Pokrovsk area.

Everything at the training range, dozens of kilometers from the front, is designed to mirror real combat conditions — even the terrain. A thin strip of forest breaks up the vast fields of blooming sunflowers stretching into the distance until the next tree line appears.

One of the soldiers training there is a 35-year-old with the call sign Komrad, who joined the military recently. He says he has no illusions that the war will end soon.

"My motivation is that there is simply no way back," he said. "If you are in the military, you have to fight. If we're here, we need to cover our brothers in arms."

Truce doesn't mean peace

For Serhii Filimonov, commander of the "Da Vinci Wolves" battalion of the 59th brigade, the war's end is nowhere in sight, and current news doesn't influence the struggle to find enough resources to equip the unit that is fighting around Pokrovsk.

"We are preparing for a long war. We have no illusions that Russia will stop," he said, speaking at his field command post. "There may be a ceasefire, but there will be no peace."

Filimonov dismissed recent talk of exchanging territory or signing agreements as temporary fixes at best.

"Russia will not abandon its goal of capturing all of Ukraine," he said. "They will attack again. The big question is what security guarantees we get — and how we hit pause."

A soldier with the call sign Mirche from the 68th brigade said that whenever there is a new round of talks, the hostilities intensify around Pokrovsk — Russia's key priority during this summer's campaign.

Whenever peace talks begin, "things on the front get terrifying," he said.