Narrating the War Before It Is Over

How the Stories We Tell About Ukraine Shape What Is Politically Possible

by Peggy-Jean M. Allin, 2025-2026 PCFR Fellow

Over the past year, a dominant analytical framing of the war in Ukraine reflected a hardening consensus: the war had reached a stalemate, Ukraine's options were shrinking, and negotiated territorial concessions looked increasingly inevitable. Then, within a matter of weeks, the narrative shifted. Around May 2026, headlines began describing a Ukraine that had turned the tide thanks to its new operational strategy following a series of deep strikes against Russian military infrastructure, supply chains, and energy facilities.

What changed? And why were so many commentators convinced Ukraine’s options had been exhausted? 

On April 28, the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations co-hosted three Ukrainian veterans, together with Cactus and Tryzub and Global Ties Arizona. We met retired armed forces members Oleh Bonchynskyi, Mykola Melnyk, and Denys Haida, who were doing a series of speaking engagements and media appearances across Arizona titled "Voices From Ukraine's Front Line." Their stories were heartbreaking, but the message they wanted to leave us with was simple: Do not stop talking about Ukraine.

Russia's full-scale invasion is now entering its fifth year, though many Ukrainians would say they have been fighting for thirteen, since 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in the Donbas. Much has changed in Ukraine since then. Oleh Bonchynskyi recalled in 2014, Ukrainian soldiers barely had weapons. "To get a gun, you had to take one from a Russian," he said.

Part of why these veterans traveled to the United States to share their experiences is that many Ukrainians increasingly fear the war is fading from Western public consciousness. "Since 2022, we've seen a steady decline in Ukraine support among Arizona Republican members of Congress. So, it was important for us to bring Ukrainian veterans to Arizona and share their stories, beyond the sensational headlines and apart from what's in the news. Real people, real stories, real battles... their personal accounts of what they have seen, witnessed, and experienced," said Irene Amrine, founder of Cactus and Tryzub.

Under the second Trump administration, the geopolitical landscape surrounding Ukraine shifted dramatically. Especially after the Alaska Summit, Washington appeared more willing to entertain aspects of Russia's position. The administration floated ideas of a "reset" with Moscow, openly discussed possible territorial concessions Ukraine might eventually have to accept, and increasingly debated settlement frameworks in which Ukraine itself often seemed sidelined.

But, this was never the original narrative. In 2022, simply surviving was widely understood as victory. Ukraine had denied Russia its principal objective—the capture of Kyiv and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Yet, as the war dragged on, the benchmark quietly shifted. The same resilience that had once been once celebrated as success gradually came to be portrayed as evidence that Ukraine was falling short and its efforts insufficient. The standards changed, not Ukraine, and as these expectations shifted a growing sense of Russian dominance and inevitability increasingly became packaged as political "realism." 

Until recently, what we began to see over the next four years was a Ukraine losing strategic media attention, losing credibility and losing the information war. Modern warfare is fought as much through public perception, and deception, as on the physical battlefield. It became assumed that Ukraine would never fully recover what had been taken. 

In December 2025, Foreign Affairs ran "The Time to End the War in Ukraine Is Now" which argued that the best deal available to Kyiv was on the table then, not in six months. In February 2026, Foreign Affairs "The Price of Peace in Ukraine", spelled out why it is in Ukraine’s interests to recognize a new border. A week later, it ran "Ukraine Is Losing the War" which went on further to argue that Russia held a decisive and lasting advantage and that Kyiv should trade land for peace while it still could. This narrative crystallized on February 28^th during Trump's meeting with Zelensky where he says "You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now."

Despite this pressure to get Ukraine to negotiate from what many believed was a position of declining leverage, Russia nevertheless failed to achieve many of its core strategic objectives. Ukraine, despite immense costs, remained standing. The assumption that Ukraine must eventually concede worked to normalize a narrative of fatigue. Repeated often enough, the strategy worked to suggest a logic that Ukraine's fate had already been decided. But that assumption was itself part of the information battle.

Then, somewhere in late spring 2026, the prevailing narrative began to shift. Renewed Ukrainian battlefield successes, combined the PURL package, Ukrainian domestic license to build Patriots, and the European Union’s approval of a €100 billion EU military assistance package (unlocked by Orbán’s political defeat), have worked to challenge the previous conventional wisdom. 

On June 1, Foreign Affairs started offering new headlines "Ukraine Turns the Tide: Why a Cease-Fire Is Now a Real Possibility." Days later, a report comes out "A Turning Point in Ukraine," citing Russian casualty rates that had exceeded recruitment every month since December. By July: "Ukraine's New Momentum", "Russian Energy Is Now at Ukraine's Mercy," and AP reporting on how Ukraine's deep strikes were altering Russia's war calculations altogether. 

It isn't that the earlier analysts and commentators were wrong. Territorial concessions reasonably appeared more likely when Ukraine's options appeared to be narrowing. Russia's structural advantages were real, even if its weaknesses are now becoming more apparent too. Nevertheless, the whiplash is hard to miss. The commentary simply moved on, as if the previous one had never been written, and how little anyone seems to have noticed is itself worth sitting with.

Either way, the story changed quickly. The rapid shift from pessimism to renewed possibility illustrates the danger of treating temporary battlefield conditions as settled strategic realities. Narratives do not merely reflect war; they become part of it. By shaping public expectations and political willingness to sustain support, they influence the choices available to those fighting it. Had Ukraine accepted the prevailing consensus that its options were exhausted and negotiated accordingly, history suggests it may have done so only a few short months before altering the military and political calculus.

This spring and summer have demonstrated that Ukraine remains capable of battlefield adaptation. The war's final outcome remains uncertain. What is already clear, however, is that as the war continues, it is unwise to narrate a war before it is over because narratives have the power to shape what kinds of outcomes are thinkable, possible and actionable. 

When the veterans visited us in April, they talked a lot about how hope and morale on the front lines was waning. Thirteen years ago, Ukrainian soldiers barely had guns. Now Ukraine has transformed into one of the world's most combat-experienced security actors and is shaping how modern warfare itself is understood. The stories we tell about wars still being fought should not become another obstacle for those still fighting them. 

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The views expressed are solely those of the writer and not those of PCFR, which takes no institutional position on policy.

This is part of a series of articles written by PCFR fellows.