PSCRP-BESA Reports No 214 (June 29, 2026)
Since March 2022 through November 2025, I visited Ukraine many times. Combined with maintaining constant contact with people living there and regularly following the Ukrainian media, this has enabled me to form my own understanding of a country that has, over the past several years, become Europe’s true shield.
Now, at the beginning of the summer of 2026, there is hope that the long war may come to an end—or at least be frozen—on terms acceptable to Ukraine. Moreover, given the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ establishment of fire control over the land corridor to Crimea created by Russia, the severe fuel crisis in Crimea, and Russia’s deepening economic crisis, even the liberation of at least part of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories appears realistic.
This naturally raises the question of “the Day After”—that is, the problems post-war Ukraine will face. Ukrainian statehood has demonstrated remarkable resilience to the world. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have arguably become the strongest army in Europe. The Ukrainian national idea, strengthened through resistance to Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression, has become embraced by millions of Ukrainian citizens of diverse ethnic backgrounds, a process reflected in the rapid displacement of the Russian language from the country’s public sphere.
However, the return to peaceful life will inevitably bring new challenges, some of them extremely serious. I will attempt to describe them based on my own observations of the current situation in Ukraine.
1. Under the Constitution of Ukraine, presidential elections that were due to take place in 2024 were postponed until the end of the full-scale war—that is, indefinitely.
Although Volodymyr Zelensky proved himself during the most critical period for Ukraine’s independence as an outstanding military and political leader and a man of great personal courage, one frequently hears sharp criticism of him in Ukraine today. In the first round of the 2019 presidential election, he received 30.24% of the vote; in the second round, 73.22%. It is difficult to imagine that he would receive such support if elections were held today.
Besides the understandable public fatigue and frustration caused by years of extraordinary hardship while Zelensky has remained in office, his declining popularity has also been significantly affected by corruption scandals involving members of his administration.
It should be recalled that both during his election campaign and after taking office, Zelensky promised voters that an uncompromising fight against corruption would be one of his highest priorities. It must be acknowledged that despite a number of highly publicized efforts, corruption in Ukraine has by no means been eradicated.
During wartime, when the overwhelming majority of the population has experienced a dramatic decline in living standards, corruption among the highest levels of government generates particularly strong public resentment. Several high-profile corruption scandals have implicated individuals from the president’s inner circle. Suffice it to mention Andriy Yermak, the long-serving head of the Presidential Office, who was arrested on May 14 on charges related to laundering 460 million hryvnias through a large-scale construction project.
When discussing Ukrainian society’s attitude toward President Volodymyr Zelensky, one should also take into account the latent antisemitism that exists among part of the population, intensified by heightened national sentiment at a time when Ukrainians are fighting not only for their independent statehood but also for their distinct national identity—an identity denied by Russian propaganda and systematically suppressed by Russian occupation authorities in occupied territories.
In addition to President Zelensky himself being of Jewish origin, former Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak is also Jewish. The president’s close friend and business partner, businessman Timur Mindich, has been named in corruption investigations involving Ukraine’s energy and defense sectors. He left Ukraine last November and currently resides in Israel. On December 1, 2025, Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ordered Mindich’s arrest in absentia. Another businessman of Jewish origin holding Israeli citizenship, Oleksandr Tsukerman, is also implicated in the same case.
2. While the president and his entourage may ultimately be removed from power through elections, the relationship between Ukrainians who served at the front—whether as volunteers or through mobilization—and those who remained in the rear by exploiting various loopholes, including administrative influence and corrupt schemes (the so-called ukhylianty, or draft evaders), appears to be a far more enduring and complex problem.
This issue overlaps with the accumulated public resentment toward the Territorial Recruitment Centers (TCCs), whose mobilization practices have repeatedly provoked violent confrontations. In many cases, attacks against TCC personnel have been reactions to excessive violence allegedly committed by the recruiters themselves.
The contrast between the self-sacrifice of one part of society and the passivity—or even profiteering—of another is striking even to outside observers who spend considerable time in wartime Ukraine. Even Ukrainians striving to speak exclusively Ukrainian can sometimes be heard repeating the old Russian proverb: “For some, war is misery; for others, it is a mother of profit.”
Given that virtually all Ukrainian society—and especially those who have fought—is suffering from collective post-traumatic stress, it is reasonable to expect that after the active phase of hostilities ends and hundreds of thousands of soldiers return home, these tensions could result in numerous serious incidents involving violence.
3. Another social challenge created by the prolonged war concerns relations between Ukrainians who remained in the country (including internally displaced persons) and refugee emigrants who relocated primarily to EU countries and have, over the years, established new lives there.
This involves millions of people.
According to 2023 data covering only officially registered refugees, Poland hosted more than 1.6 million Ukrainians, Germany nearly one million, the Czech Republic over half a million, Spain and Italy nearly 200,000 each, over 100,000 each in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Austria, nearly 100,000 each in the Netherlands and Ireland, more than 70,000 in Switzerland, Lithuania, France, and Belgium, and more than 50,000 each in Finland, Sweden, Portugal, and Norway.
Many families were separated and, in numerous cases, ultimately broken apart, as women and children settled in EU countries while men remained in Ukraine.
At the same time, many Ukrainian refugees are men of military age who neither fought for Ukraine nor work or pay taxes there. Some of these individuals will never return, but others eventually will—whether for family reunification, patriotic reasons, or because European host countries revoke their refugee status and require them to return.
Ukraine needs these people, having suffered enormous demographic losses. However, their years of life in the European Union will have given them experiences fundamentally different from those of fellow citizens who remained in wartime Ukraine.
It is difficult to predict how severe the resulting tensions will become, but their emergence appears inevitable.
4. An even more acute issue will inevitably be society’s attitude toward the population of the deoccupied territories.
It should be remembered that while some territories came under Russian control only after 2022, others—notably Crimea—have remained under occupation since 2014.
In practical terms, this means that an entire generation has grown up for whom Russian is the only language they know, while no educational institutions in government-controlled Ukraine now operate in Russian. (Several tens of thousands of Ukrainian children in occupied territories have nevertheless continued studying online through Ukrainian schools since 2022.)
Residents of occupied territories have spent years under the influence of Russian propaganda. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands actively collaborated with occupation authorities and even served in the Russian Armed Forces, directly participating in the war against Ukraine. Many were killed in combat, but their parents, widows, and children continue living in occupied areas.
Meanwhile, government-controlled Ukraine is home to vast numbers of internally displaced persons forced to flee Crimea, Donbas, and the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions because of Russian aggression. Some of them are currently fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the renowned Azov Regiment.
Their eventual encounter with former neighbors who remained under occupation is unlikely to be easy.
In Crimea, this tension will inevitably be compounded by relations between the Crimean Tatars—most of whom sympathized with or actively supported Ukraine (one need only recall the Atesh partisan movement)—and the predominantly Slavic population, namely ethnic Russians and Russified Ukrainians, most of whom supported the Russian occupation.
In private conversations, I have repeatedly heard Ukrainians say that it would be better if a significant share of the residents of the self-proclaimed DPR, LPR, and Crimea were to leave Ukraine together with the retreating Russian forces.
Against the backdrop of such sentiments, Ukrainian demographers have urged society to adopt a more constructive attitude toward residents of the occupied territories, guided by Ukraine’s own national interests. Whether Ukrainian society will be able to follow this recommendation in practice remains uncertain.
In conclusion, it seems to me that 2026 will, one way or another, break the routine reality of the prolonged war between Russia and Ukraine. Consequently, both Russia and Ukraine will enter fundamentally new phases of development.
Whereas Russia’s future appears unequivocally bleak, Ukraine’s future seems extraordinarily difficult—but nevertheless full of promise.