KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that there is no end in sight to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as fatigue grows among Kiev’s allies nearly two years after the war began and the Kremlin expresses growing confidence in victory.

Zelensky said he had rejected a military request to mobilize up to 500,000 Ukrainians into the army, an unpopular proposal that could affect his deteriorating poll numbers among Ukrainians.

His meeting with local and foreign journalists caps a difficult year in Ukraine, with Kiev’s frontline forces under strain and allies wavering over military and financial support.

“Nobody knows the answer,” Zelensky told reporters when asked whether the war with Russia could end in 2024.

“Even respected people, our commanders and our Western partners, who say this is a war for many years don’t know,” he said.

The question of how long Western countries will provide Kiev with vital support is becoming increasingly urgent.

Zelensky embarked on a tour of Western countries last week to drum up more military and political support as Russia’s invasion in February approaches its two-year anniversary.

However, he failed to convince the US Congress to immediately approve $60 billion in aid, while Hungarian leader Viktor Orban in Brussels announced an aid package worth around 50 billion euros (US$55 billion). dollars) blocked.

WASHINGTON WILL “NOT TREAT US”

Zelensky said on Tuesday he wanted to organize talks with Orban to find “solutions” to their differences and expressed confidence that Washington would continue to provide help.

“I am confident that the United States will not betray us,” he said.

With elections looming in the United States next year, Zelensky acknowledged that the outcome of the vote could have a “very strong influence” on the course of the war and said Republican favorite Donald Trump will “certainly pursue a different policy” than Joe Biden.

These setbacks on the diplomatic front are the result of a disappointing counteroffensive that Kiev launched in June, using Western-supplied tanks and weapons stored for months.

Responding to growing war weariness, U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that the world had become “jaded” by the Ukraine conflict, where war crimes continued to be committed “mainly by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”

In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed victory and said at a meeting with defense officials on Tuesday that society had rallied behind the war effort.

Putin, who announced he would run for re-election in March, attacked the West, claiming it was seeking the destruction of Moscow.

“Well, we won’t give up the goals of the special military operation either,” he said, using the Kremlin’s term for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

TRUST IN LEADERSHIP FLAWING

Zelensky faced growing discontent before the Russian invasion before becoming the global face of Ukrainian resistance, but he is once again feeling political pressure at home.

Recent polls show that the number of Ukrainians who trust Zelensky has fallen to 62%, compared with 84% a year ago, when Kiev’s forces enjoyed successes in the east and south.

Progress in this year’s counteroffensive was much more modest, with only a few villages in the south and east recaptured after months of fighting against entrenched Russian forces.

Zelensky said he had received a request from the army to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to replenish Kiev’s armed forces, but he told the military that it needed “further arguments in support of this idea.”

Hours before Zelensky was scheduled to speak, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had foiled a drone attack on a facility in Moscow.

However, a senior Ukrainian military official acknowledged that fighting with Russian forces in the eastern Kharkiv region was “complicated” and that Ukrainian forces were outnumbered and outgunned.

Despite the recent setbacks, Ukrainians still overwhelmingly support both the armed forces and their commander, Valery Zaluzhny.

In a move that highlights growing political divisions, Kyiv residents have gathered in the city center to demand more funding to help the military retake territory.

“GREAT VICTORY” ON THE BLACK SEA

Despite setbacks on the battlefield and concerns about Western support for Kiev, Zelensky has highlighted the Black Sea as a recent success story.

Ukrainian drones have forced some Russian warships to redeploy after several successful attacks.

Ukraine has also reopened a maritime corridor to commercial cargo ships using its Black Sea ports, although Moscow has threatened that ships using those hubs could be treated as military targets.

“Everyone can understand that the Russian fleet has been deprived of its almost complete dominance in the Ukrainian Black Sea,” Zelensky said on Tuesday.