I feel sorry for Volodymyr Zelensky. It’s devastating watching him travelling all around the world, struggling to convince even his closest ally, Washington, to keep helping Ukraine. But that is not his only problem. I bet Zelensky and his speechwriters are tossing and turning in bed at night, wondering what he should say when he addresses Ukrainians over Christmas and New Year. This time last year, he said 2023 would be ‘the year of victory’. Now there are fears that Ukraine could lose.

These are dark times for Ukraine. While the West drowns in ‘fatigue’ from a war it is not fighting, Russian forces have taken the initiative along the frontline. Avdiivka in the Donetsk region remains the scene of the most intense battles. During its attempts to encircle the city, the Russian military has suffered more than 13,000 casualties and lost more than 220 combat vehicles, according to US estimates. Russia has reportedly lost 315,000 troops since the start of the full-scale invasion – almost 90 per cent of the military personnel it had in February last year. These losses don’t bother Vladimir Putin; he feels that luck is finally on his side, so he is ready to endlessly sacrifice his soldiers. Sending men, wave after wave, into a meat grinder worked for him last winter when the Russians captured Bakhmut, so why not do it again?

Zelensky will have to find the right words to inspire more Ukrainians to get involved in the fighting

This is not the only hot spot on the frontline. There are conflicting reports over whether the town of Mariinka in the Donetsk region has fallen. Before the war, it was home to 10,000 residents. Now, nobody lives there: Russia has razed it to the ground. In the Kharkiv region, Moscow has been concentrating a large force near Kupyansk and is attempting to capture the nearby village of Synkivka, hoping to pave the way for the blockade of the city. In the Zaporizhzhia region, near the village of Robotyne, Russian military forces reportedly cover themselves with Ukrainian PoWs, using them as human shields as Russians fire at Ukrainian positions. For Ukraine, the focus has shifted from liberation of lands to the struggle of not losing the ones it has.

Winning the war against an adversary that so often disregards humanity and possesses seemingly unlimited resources seems less and less possible. In Ukraine, the impact of the non-stop fighting is already evident in the thinning nation. Some 70,000 soldiers have been reported dead. According to the UN, more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, but the real number could be much much higher. Little progress on the battlefield this summer resulted in the mood slowly changing. Over the past six months, the share of Ukrainians who are ready to accept territorial concessions to end the war has increased from 10 per cent to 19 per cent. As of this month, 74 per cent of Ukrainians still stand against giving any concessions to Putin. They don’t want to give up because they know what will happen when Russia wins: more deaths and more war.

Still, many Ukrainian families will meet this Christmas for funerals. Thousands of soldiers will exchange greetings with their loved ones from cold and wet trenches, where they have been since February last year. I want to believe that this is just the darkest time before dawn, but Zelensky will have to find the right words to inspire more Ukrainians to get involved in the fighting – and convince his allies to provide the tools for that. It’s a heavy burden for one man to bear.