If fate indeed “no longer smiles on Europeans”, as Slavoj Zizek writes for Kyiv Independent, what might we dare say for the fates of Ukrainians? For a little over three years Ukraine has been continuously preparing for the worst and simultaneously praised for its resilience. Ukrainians at home and abroad have been wondering how much worse it can get, and how can they persist in their resilience in the face of extreme existential uncertainty. Considering the jarring news of military aid and intelligence suspension from the USA following a televised argument between President Trump, Vice President Vance and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy[JW1] [JW2] , we are soon to find out the value of resilience in sustaining Ukraine’s fight for survival.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the fragility of international
security frameworks and highlighted the growing vacuums in the global political order. For Ukraine, however, this struggle is not purely geopolitical; it is also a matter of restoring ontological security, or the need to maintain a stable sense of self and continuity in the face of disruption. From a Kleinian approach, ontological insecurity defines the means of coping with the profound anxiety, such as that brought on by Russian aggression. I argued elsewhere that within the first months of the war, a variety of mythical stories emerged and were shared widely in the cultural zeitgeist of Ukraine, that one way or another provided a new Ukrainian imaginary with a secure national sense of self and community. These included stories like the Ghost of Kyiv—a mysterious fighter pilot said to have downed dozens of Russian aircraft over the capital; the thirteen defenders of Snake Island, who, despite being vastly outnumbered, refused to surrender and famously told a Russian warship to “go fuck [it]self”; and the woman who confronted a Russian soldier, urging him to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so flowers would grow from his grave.

Such narratives of resistance represent the broader movements of civil and militarized resistance, inconsistent with the initial expectations of Russian political establishment. As Kseniya Oksamytna (2023) highlights, Russia’s war is grounded in colonial assumptions about Ukraine’s subordinate place within the world of competing imperial powers. Ukrainians within this worldview are portrayed as divided, weak and vulnerable to Western influence. The scale and intensity of Ukraine’s resistance has caught the Russians, and perhaps just as importantly the Western world, off guard – pointing at a general lack of understanding in IR about “why the weak resist and the forms their resistance takes.”

On the other hand, the depth of the shock exhibited by Ukraine’s closest allies in response to its relative success cannot be chalked up to an oversight, but are endemic to the culture of “Westsplaining” (and coloniality) dominant both in IR and international politics. The most eggregious manifestation of such epistemic injustice are of course visible in the most recent diplomatic mineral deal debacle at the Oval Office, which happened on February 28th, only 4 days after the 3rd anniversary of the full-scale invasion. Prior to the meeting Trump portrayed the invasion as, a claim eerily similar to Russian imperialist narratives, a liberatory war designed to “save people from genocide”. Setting aside the role of individual grievances, it is not only Tump who holds explicity extortionist and belitteling views towards Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for instance, stated that he favoured the “extraordinary opportunities”; that both U.S. and Russia could seize economically, representing the logic of the profit-focused ‘realistic’ international politics of the new United States political order.

Despite the expressions of support voiced by several European leaders, the effect of the rapturous diplomatic fiasco marks one of the arguably most precarious moments for Ukrainian existential prospects since the first months of the full-scale invasion. The response among Ukrainians, unsurprisingly from the perspective of ontological securitisation, has been to criticize the pressure the US has been exerting on Ukraine. As Mariia Zolkyna from the Ukrainian think tank "Foundation for Democratic Initiatives" comments for the BBC: “Trump doesn't understand that millions of Ukrainians are united by a common sense of intolerance for injustice. This is what led to the revolutions of 2004 and 2014.” US pressure is, thus, experienced as and equated to Russian political pressure that has shaped the modern Ukrainian search for self-determination. Tetiana Kyselova and Yuna Potomkina likewise note that pressure exerted by Trump “too strongly resembled the Minsk process”, a failed ceasefire agreement mediated by France and Germany shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Returning to the initial question — how much worse can it get, and how can Ukrainians persist? The framework of ontological security helps provide a partial answer. As long as Ukraine can maintain a coherent and resilient national narrative — one that frames resistance as a necessary act of self-definition in the face of imperialist aggression — then its ontological security can help sustain its material and psychological resilience. A survey as recent as January 2025 reports that Ukrainians are still far from being worn down by the war to the point of accepting the demands imposed by Russia and other powerful foreign states.

However, this is not guaranteed. Ontological security is not a permanent achievement; it requires constant maintenance, particularly in the face of war fatigue, internal political divisions, and shifting international attention. Much will depend on Ukraine’s ability to link its internal narrative of resilience to external structures of support — ensuring that its fight for self-determination is recognized not only as a national struggle but as part of a broader global commitment to justice and decolonial emancipation. Whether other European countries are able to provide these structures of support, however, remains to be seen.