As the gruelling war between the two Orthodox Christian Slavic nations enters its fourth year, fissures are appearing in the international support that has so far helped Ukraine fight Russia.

This week, the UN will vote for two competing resolutions – one backed by the US, which aims to end the war quickly without mentioning the status of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, and the other supported by the EU, which says that Russia should withdraw troops from all Ukrainian territories.

The US sidelined Kiev in the recent talks between American and Russian officials held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on the fate of the war.

Last year was the most deadly for both sides as Kiev lost significant ground to Russia in eastern Ukraine.

But despite this territorial loss, Moscow has not been able to subjugate Kiev to its will. Early in the war, Russia was hoping to take the Ukrainian capital and install a government of its own choice within days after the first bullets were fired. That didn’t happen.

“After three years of fighting, neither Ukraine nor Russia has emerged as the clear winner of the war,” says Eugene Chausovsky, a defence expert and a senior director on analytical development and training at New Lines Institute.

“The war has taken on a tremendous human and economic cost for both countries while producing no strategic breakthrough for either side, in the sense that Russia has not been able to defeat Ukraine nor have Ukraine and the West been able to stop Moscow’s war efforts,” Chausovsky tells TRT World.

However, the diplomatic winds no longer seem entirely in Ukraine’s favour. Under the previous US administration of President Joe Biden, Washington had put its financial and political weight behind Volodymyry Zelenskyy. Trump is quickly reversing the course.

Trump recently called Zelenskyy “a dictator”, accusing the Ukrainian leader as an obvious obstacle to peace and even saying that he “should not have started” the war”.

Prior to Trump’s second term, for a good part of the war, Russian leader Vladimir Putin was portrayed by the Biden administration and its Western allies as an aggressor and autocratic leader.

Experts say Zelenskyy has to make difficult choices as Trump’s wrath increases.

What will Zelenskyy do?

In his recent remarks, Zelenskyy made abundantly clear that he won’t take Trump’s criticism lying down. Zelenskyy says the US president “unfortunately lives in this disinformation space”.

Zelenskyy also laments that Riyadh talks have given Russia legitimacy on the international stage, undoing the impact of Western sanctions and orchestration that was aimed to put pressure on Moscow.

“Kiev will not make an agreement that would force Ukraine to surrender to Russia,” says Yasar Sari, an academic and an expert at Haydar Aliyev Eurasian Research Center of Ibn Haldun University.

Ukraine, a former Soviet republic under Moscow’s rule, has been able to defend its territory against Russia, which has one of the world’s biggest armies, giving Zelenskyy more reason to stand up to Trump, says Sari.

While Ukraine has suffered losses in the war, it has not been defeated either, says Sari. As a result, it would be difficult for Zelenskyy, a president during wartime, to accept a peace deal, which would include concessions from Ukraine to Russia, says Sari.

While Russia has made gains in eastern Ukraine, Moscow has also lost many soldiers and significant military equipment, ranging from tanks to artillery guns.

According to the latest estimates, more than 90,000 Russian soldiers have been killed during the three-year war. On the other hand, at least 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed by Russia, according to Zelenskyy’s recent statement.

Zakhid Farrukh Mamedov, professor of international economics at Azerbaijan State University of Economics in Baku, also says that Zelenskyy “can not agree to a peace deal, which means a kind of capitulation” to Russia.

“He has to fight against this kind of peace deal. He has no other choice,” Mamedov tells TRT World. Mamedov strongly believes that Zelenskyy can not rule Ukraine if he accepts Russian conditions, which may include giving up 20 percent of Ukrainian territory that is under Russia’s control.

After witnessing the Russian pressure, Ukraine will also be wary of dropping plans to become a member of NATO military alliance, says Mamedov.

What is Russia’s next step?

Russia is “more than happy” with how things are shaping up because Putin wants his country to be integrated back into the global trade, says Mamedov.

Sari, who was in Moscow last year, observed that Russia has been largely isolated from the rest of the world.

“Also, throughout the war, Ukrainian lands gained by Russia were not taken cheaply. It cannot be said that Putin got exactly what he wanted. It’s clear that Russia has been worn out by both Ukrainian resistance and global isolation,” Sari tells TRT World.

As a result, from the Russian point of view, sitting at a peace table to end the war at this point provides a good political opportunity, says Sari.

He also draws attention to the fact that Russian negotiators in Riyadh included people like Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a state-owned sovereign wealth fund, who has connections with Trump's inner circle, another indication that Putin aims to reach a deal with the US president.

“If Russia is able to get concessions out of the US without offering anything meaningful in return, that will be a win for Moscow,” says Chausovsky.

“The ultimate winner of the war will not only depend on what kind of deal is reached but also how sustainable such an agreement will be and how it will be implemented,” he adds.

Under Trump pressure, Sari assesses that both sides might reach a ceasefire, which can “freeze the conflict” until Moscow and Kiev reach a concrete peace deal.

“Under a possible ceasefire deal, Russia will be able to keep territories it has gained, it promises to not carry out further attacks on Ukraine and the Western sanctions on Moscow are softened.”

Last week, David Ignatius, an American columnist, wrote that a possible Ukraine-Russia ceasefire might create a status just like “the armistice line that ended the Korean War and allowed South Korea to achieve spectacular prosperity on its side of the demilitarized zone.”

Does this mean the US sees a future in which Ukraine is divided? Can Ukraine continue to be Ukraine – as far as its territory is concerned?

In recent weeks, like Ignatius, other American experts have floated various solutions. The partition of East and West Germany after World War 2 is another precedent popping up in the writings and comments of Western political and intellectual circles.

In this scenario, Russian-controlled territories will be “frozen” under Moscow while the rest of Ukraine might possibly join the EU.

“The US position on Ukraine as articulated today should surprise no one in Europe: it’s just what European insiders have been saying to me off the record, in back channels, behind the scenes for two years: West Ukraine and East Ukraine, like West Germany and East Germany but in this case – EU Yes, NATO No,” Nicholas Dungan, founder and CEO of CogitoPraxis, a strategic consultancy in The Hague, told CNN.

But other experts warn that Ukraine might fall apart just like South Vietnam collapsed two years after the Nixon-Kissinger duo forced the pro-American government to reach a peace settlement with pro-communist North Vietnam in 1973.

“There are sobering parallels between this week’s U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh that exclude Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the secret U.S.-North Vietnam negotiations conducted behind (former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van) Thieu’s back,” wrote William McGurn, a Wall Street Journal columnist.

But Sari says the Ukrainian example differs from these Cold War-era examples.

While Eastern Ukraine has a significant Russian-speaking population, the rest of Ukraine has a strong cultural connection with the West and Moscow’s war in the country has “increased Ukrainian nationalism” drawing “a psychological boundary” between the two Slavic nations, he says.

“As a result, I don’t expect that pro-Russian political elites can come to power in Kiev due to a ceasefire or a peace deal between Russia and the US,” he says, adding that the war turned the Ukrainian army into a formidable power.

The ultimate question for Ukraine’s future is whether the West will provide its security guarantees to Kiev or not, says Sari.

Chausovsky agrees. Ukraine’s future depends on getting security guarantees from the US and Europe and the level of its integration with the Western world, he says.