Anastasiia Fedchenko, 36, wept in agony - her pain echoing off the gilded walls of Kiev's St. Michael's Cathedral.

She sat with her hands on either side of her belly. She is pregnant with her first child, a baby girl. Her husband, Andriy Kusmenko, lay inches away, in uniform, in an open coffin.

The Marine Corps commander was killed in action in eastern Ukraine on January 4 this year. He is now and forever 33 years old. When Andriy went to war, Anastasiia wrote about it as a journalist.

His comrades filed past and threw red roses into his coffin. At the end of the funeral prayers, Anastasia leaned forward and gave "the love of her life" one last kiss.

Outside the cathedral, she paid tribute to her "most handsome husband" who died serving his country.

She told the BBC: "I am sad that my daughter will never see her father, but she will know him as a soldier, an officer who did everything he could to keep Ukraine alive for her and other generations. "

"This war is going to go on like in Russia. I'm really worried that our children will inherit it from us and have to fight."

That's not the case according to Donald Trump, who has claimed he could end the war in one day and return to the White House next week. He is already pushing for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

This would bring shame to the deceased, according to Sergeant Demytro, codenamed "Smile", who fought alongside Andrei and came to the cathedral to mourn him.

"Let the people in power decide, but I don't think those who fell will want them (Ukrainian leaders) sitting at the table," he said.

"After the funeral, we will return to work. We will fight for every Ukrainian who falls."

There are many people here — like Anastasia and Dmytro — who believe too many Ukrainians are being killed trying to make a deal with Russia. But public opinion is changing, with others arguing that no deal would cause too much death and destruction.

As Ukraine is going through its third winter of war, one word is rarely mentioned here - "victory."

In the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, we heard this sound everywhere. It was a rallying cry for a country suddenly faced with columns of enemy tanks. But the past was indeed a foreign country—and a country with much more territory.

Moscow now controls nearly a fifth of its neighbor's territory, including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014, and says any peace talks must take this into account.

Ukraine in 2025 is a place full of cold realities - cities are empty, cemeteries are filled, and soldiers have abandoned their posts in large numbers.

In the center of Ukraine, six hours' drive from the capital, a young soldier stood in the dock.

Serhiy Hnezdilov, a burly 24-year-old man, was locked inside a glass cubicle in a packed courtroom in the city of Dnipro. He was put on trial for desertion, one of many charges.

Data from the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine show that since 2022, about 100,000 cases have been opened against soldiers who left the army.

When Khnezdilov went absent without leave, he publicly demanded a clear timetable for the end of military service. He said he was ready to fight, but not without a demobilization plan. He had served for five years, two of which were before the full-scale Russian invasion.

“We have to keep fighting,” he told me during a break in the hearing. “We have no choice.”

"But soldiers are not slaves. Everyone who has served on the frontline for three years or more should have the right to rest. The authorities have promised for a long time to set a period of service, but they have not done so."

In court, he also complained of corruption and gross incompetence among his commanders.

After a brief procedural hearing, he was handcuffed on the way back to jail. If convicted, he faces up to 12 years in prison. "Help Ukraine," he told us as he was led away.

Many other Ukrainian soldiers are still on the front lines doing their best to try to at least slow down the Russian advance.

Mykhailo, 42, the commander of a drone unit, smokes cigarettes every night and drinks "Non-Stop," a Ukrainian energy drink, as he fights every night.

His 68th "Hunter" Brigade is fighting to defend the important transportation hub city of Pokrovsk on the eastern front. The Russians were approaching from both sides.

Mikaylo drove us to the Ukrainian positions - we could only risk traveling in an armored car after dark. The Russians are also looking to the sky. Their drones are a constant threat. He was alert and tired.

"The first day I went to the recruiting office," he told us, "I wanted everything to go quickly. To be honest, I was tired. There was very little rest (for him, a total of 40 days in three years). The only thing that saved me was that I could video chat with my family.”

We arrive at an abandoned house where Michelo and his men unload equipment and set up a pop-up drone position. Move the screen in and connect the cables.

Outside, troops set up antennas taller than two stories high. They work quickly by the light of a flashlight - using a red beam rather than a white beam as they are harder to detect. They then assemble bombs to arm their "Vampire" - an oversized attack drone.

For the next few hours, we sat in the front row as Mihailo (call sign “Admin”) piloted the drone, his eyes darting from screen to screen. First, he air-dropped supplies to Ukrainian frontline troops, then dropped anti-tank mines to underground Russian units. It misses the mark slightly.

He faced strong winds and Russian interference. He was constantly on the lookout for incoming enemy drones.

Michelo spots a Russian fighter plane in the sky. A few minutes later we heard the distinct crash of three Russian glide bombs. "It's far away," he told us. As it turns out, that means two to three kilometers away.

During a break, I asked Michelo if he thought a peace agreement was possible. "Maybe not," he said. "This (Putin) is a completely unstable person, that's putting it very mildly."

"I hope that at some stage the enemy will stop because of fatigue, or someone with a clear head will come to power."

He would not comment on President Trump.

While Michelo is a veteran of the war, one of his men is a newbie. David, 24, joined the force last September as the Russians approached his homeland. He now spends his time handling explosives - although he prefers studying languages ​​at university.

"No one knows how long the war will last," he said, "and maybe the politicians don't either."

"I hope it ends soon so civilians don't suffer and people don't die anymore. But given what's going on on the front lines right now, not anytime soon."

He believed that if the guns were silenced, it would be just a pause and then Moscow would come back with a vengeance.

The wind gets stronger and stronger, and the vampire drone makes an emergency landing. No action has been taken yet. The troops packed up and left as quickly as they came. They will return to action at nightfall and continue their duel in the sky.

But in reality, the Russians are still moving slowly, and a Trump presidency will mean pressure to reach a deal. Here's a crueler fact: If it does come, it's unlikely to meet Ukraine's conditions.

Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Goktay Koraltan, Anastasiia Levchenko and Volodymyr Lozhko.