Will the year 2022 that has just opened witness the most significant war on European soil in the 1990s?
US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held an hour-and-a-half-hour tense conversation on Thursday during which this very question was discussed.
The background to the phone call between the leaders is the deepening crisis in eastern Ukraine and the growing fear of Russian action in a neighbor to the west.
The presidents exchanged polite warnings, with Biden warning of economic sanctions in the event of military action and Putin calling on his counterpart to comply with the unprecedented list of demands Moscow has made on European countries and NATO allies.
Although Biden talked to Zalanski about haircuts after the conversation, the feeling that Ukraine is engrossed in an international conflict larger than its size is well clear.
Zalanski delivered a belligerent and defiant speech in honor of the new year and told his countrymen: "No army on the other side of the border scares us, because a mighty army protects us from our side of the border."
A Ukrainian soldier near the line of confrontation with pro-Russian separatists,
But on the other side of the border more than one hundred and fifty thousand Russian soldiers are already deployed, alongside a tremendous amount of armored vehicles and tanks, for operation within the territory of Ukraine.
While in Europe, especially in the Baltic states and neighboring Poland, the escalating Russian rhetoric is strongly condemned, as winter deepens its grip and rivers and roads freeze, the chances of Russian action increase.
The war was never over
But the fear of Russian military action is only part of the story in eastern Ukraine, where low-intensity fighting has been going on for more than seven years.
Two separatist districts, Donetsk and Lugansk, have seceded from Ukraine after the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and are in an ongoing state of rebellion against Ukrainian military forces.
Separatists, ethnic Russians who make up the majority in the rebel provinces, have over the years been joined by "volunteer" Russian mercenaries sent by Moscow to strengthen the rebel republics and leave the Ukrainian army in a state of constant attrition war.
On Saturday a Ukrainian soldier was killed in a shelling of separatists and an exchange of fire along the front line, which became a chain of excavations and fortifications in the style of World War I, became a daily occurrence that claimed the lives of fighters and civilians on both sides.
The front lines have not been agreed and they pass through villages, forests, fields and towns, often within areas inhabited by civilians.
The Ukrainian army itself has changed greatly throughout the seven years of verification and has received better training, advanced weapons purchased from the United States and many experienced fighters, forged in the never-ending battle in the east of the country turned it from an army on paper into a fighting force to be reckoned with.
Despite this change, the possibility that the Ukrainian army will have to deal with a large-scale Russian invasion, deprives sleep of the eyes of state captains and army commanders.
The flurry of troops stationed in front of Russian armored columns clad in the world's second-largest air force has led Kiev's decision-makers to take steps that look downright desperate.
Last year, "regional defense units" were set up that bring together civilian volunteers, men and women, who train weekly in wooden weapons and prepare to defend the cities from Russian attack.
Olaha, a volunteer in such a unit, told Free Europe Radio: "This is a good idea for someone who is not qualified to serve in military units or whose job is essential to the economy."
Ukrainian volunteers train with wooden weapons,
But despite the high motivation of most of the volunteers for these units, the equipment in their possession was scarce and the ammunition provided to them, mainly for small arms, would suffice for a few hours of combat against well-trained and well-equipped Russian military forces.
In addition, out of one hundred thousand volunteers who hoped to recruit in the past year in Ukraine just over 8,000 were recruited.
"Waiting in fear for missiles"
In the capital Kiev, hundreds of kilometers west of the Russian border is maintained a routine of life typical of any large metropolis in Eastern Europe during the winter holiday season.
The streets are ornate, the shopping malls are bustling and the restaurants and nightclubs are full of celebrants, despite the corona plague.
But the routine can be misleading.
"We are all here living our lives, maintaining a routine while we wait for an attack. A missile attack, a tank attack. We do not know. It is difficult to live next to such a dangerous neighbor," Rastislav Pryakov, a mobile device dealer in the Kiev capital, told US military news website "coffee or die".
Holiday routine in the capital Kiev in Ukraine, Photo: AP
"We have been experiencing a relentless war for several years. We have become accustomed to living with the thoughts of escalation almost all the time. Right now we are living in fear because we just do not know what tomorrow will bring," Irina Kozer, a resident of Kiev, told the news website.
It is difficult to know how the current round of tensions between Russia and Ukraine will end and the chance that this time, as last spring, Russian forces will return to their bases in the East and tensions will drop, is a reasonable possibility.
But while Russian rhetoric is escalating on the one hand, and the West is fortifying itself with threats of sanctions and aid to Ukraine, the likelihood of Russian military action that will lead to a war of unprecedented intensity on the continent has long been more tangible day by day.
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