War in Ukraine grinds on despite ongoing peace talks

This week is the last Inside Geneva podcast of 2025, and my colleagues and I thought long and hard about which particular topic to focus on.

It’s been a momentous year, and not, mostly, in a good way. Over the course of 2025 we have talked regularly about the Gaza conflict, about the cuts to humanitarian funding, about climate change, about international law, and, of course, about the war in Ukraine, and what a fair peace might look like.

And so, since a peace “deal” is once again in the headlines, we decided to return in this episode to Ukraine. But we do not focus on the tricky question of Russia’s frozen assets, or how much, if any, territory Ukraine might be pressured to give up, nor do we discuss the pros and cons of NATO membership. All these have been covered ad nauseum by multiple media outlets – what we talk about this week is the everyday reality for Ukrainians. Because, despite all the talk of peace, the war continues unabated.

In Geneva last week, the UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk reminded member states just how grim the situation is. “Civilian casualties so far this year are 24% higher than the same period last year,” he said. “This is largely due to the Russian armed forces stepping up their use of long-range missiles and drones in frontline and urban areas. This escalation is a never-ending nightmare for the people of Ukraine.”

Sharing that nightmare are aid workers. They have been in Ukraine since the start of the conflict, supporting local hospitals, providing shelter for displaced families, repairing and preparing homes damaged by bombing for winter. Just because it’s the festive season, doesn’t mean they get to go home and see their own friends and families.

Inside Geneva talked to two of them: Marcel van Maastrigt of the UN Refugee AgencyExternal link (UNHCR) and Robin Meldrum of Médecins sans FrontièresExternal link (MSF). Both were candid about the challenges, both were keen to stress that the focus should be not on them but on their Ukrainian colleagues and the ordinary people they are trying to help.

I caught up with van Maastrigt in Odesa, where he is based. He and his team have provided winter assistance to tens of thousands of familiesExternal link. This time of year should be one of celebration, but, as he told me, there are constant air attacks: “We have six, seven a night, and more and more during the day.”

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Distorted normalcy

He describes a “distorted normalcy,” in which kindergarten children march calmly, hand in hand, to the air raid shelter when the siren sounds. In Kherson, a city right on the front line, “the population is being terrorised on a daily basis”. Small drones, controlled by iPads or mobile phones, are literally “hunting” civilians as they venture outside to shop. On Russian social media accounts, you can find videos of this, obscenely dubbed by the drone handlers as a “safari”.

But van Maastrigt wants to stress the resilience of the people living through this horror. “At two in the afternoon you might have an air alert, and at three in the afternoon people in shops and restaurants are putting up Christmas decorations, because they want to continue their life,” he explains.

He will be spending Christmas with his Ukrainian colleagues. They are planning a dinner and “maybe a drink on Christmas Day… but at the same time we know that the same night we might be called to work”.

He will also be spending Christmas with new additions to his household: three puppies he is fostering after an elderly lady told him she could not look after them anymore. They are, he admits, more of a handful than he had imagined, but still “it’s sometimes nice to come home to a more positive chaos. Apart from the chaos that you encounter during the rest of the day. But this loud and furry chaos at home is relaxing, to be honest”.

Cold dark city

After talking to Marcel van Maastrigt, I find Robin Meldrum in Kyiv. The internet is fine, but he is sitting in the dark, wearing a hat, gloves and a thick winter jacket. “Today I had electricity in my flat a few hours in the afternoon,” he explains. “The electricity is going to be off until about 11pm tonight. I’ll have 3-4 hours of electricity tomorrow.”

This is the result of constant Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power supplies – a war of attrition designed, in the depths of winter, to wear the population down, to instil fear and exhaustion.

Like van Maastrigt, Meldrum spends a lot of time on the frontline, supporting hospitals in towns like Kherson or Sloviansk. The population is primarily elderly people who just do not want to leave their homes. Winter, with little heat and precarious healthcare, is especially risky for them. “When winter comes, we see lots of people slipping, sliding, falling and old bones breaking,” he explains. “The emergency department is full.”

And, like van Maastrigt, Meldrum has experienced the “relentless” air attacks from Russia. “When the big attacks come in, they are really big,” he tells me. “You feel the walls and the floor and the ceiling of your flat shaking.” Just a week before I spoke to Meldrum, there was a drone and bomb attack just metres from MSF’s staff house in Sloviansk. Luckily, everyone in the neighbourhood had taken shelter, but, he said “it was a completely civilian area. Our neighbours were a beekeeper, a family with children.”

For Meldrum, this Christmas will be spent with his Ukrainian colleagues and neighbours. He has, he tells me with some pride, brought “vegetarian suet” from Britain, so that he can “introduce Ukrainian colleagues to the joy of a good homemade mince pie.”

Neither van Maastrigt, Meldrum, nor millions of Ukrainians who are displaced or who are refugees, will have a Christmas surrounded by friends and family. But they are determined to carry on and to find some moments of festivity and happiness. “There is a real effort to make it look like everything is normal,” says Marcel. “To have the decorations, the music and the food. Sometimes people go to parties. It’s nice to walk through town and see that happening. In a way it gives you some hope.”

There are 130 conflicts around the world today, affecting millions of people. This holiday season, thousands of aid workers are staying put, hoping to make things a little better for ordinary civilians. Listen to Inside Geneva for the full conversation, and, if you are moved by what you hear, and want to support aid work in Ukraine, the links are above.

Next time on Inside Geneva, we’ll have our regular journalists’ roundtable to discuss our the stand-out stories of 2025 and to predict what we’ll be reporting on in 2026. Join us on January 6.

Edited by Virginie Mangin/