The impact of the conflict on ordinary citizens, meanwhile, is adding up. More than 4 million people live in the conflict area of Donbas, experiencing food insecurity, unemployment, and lack of health care. On both sides of the front line, roughly 600,000 live in unsafe settlements, exposed to daily shelling, land mines, and restrictions on freedom of movement as well as basic services. On both sides, civilians despair that a dividing line with no preexisting cultural or political basis will fast become an almost irreversible fact of life.

Authorities in Kiev are doing far too little in response. They could take steps to show that they consider residents of separatist-held areas full citizens—victims rather than perpetrators of the conflict. They could facilitate access across the line of contact and ensure that those who live in the separatist republics avoid bureaucratic hassle and can receive government benefits. Instead, Kiev restricts their freedom of movement and access to state subsidies and services. The Ukrainian government’s use of force is often indiscriminate, causing harm to unarmed civilians. It has failed to commit to amnesty even for people (teachers, doctors, and the like) who are mere employees on the wrong side of the line and are in need of reassurance about their future. Too often officials brush aside any criticism as mere echoes of Russian propaganda.

Ukrainian leaders proffer their reasons: They do not wish to do anything that could provide a scintilla of legitimacy to separatist authorities or bankroll separatist rule. But neither the de facto authorities in the breakaway republics nor their sponsors in Moscow much care about how well or poorly residents fare. They hardly aspire to be models of good governance. It’s Ukraine’s own citizens who are made to pay the price. At this rate, if and when the time for reintegration comes, people on the eastern side of the line of separation are likely to view the return of Kiev’s writ to Donbas with more fear than relief.

For now, such talk generally falls on deaf ears. Officials in Kiev argue that they did not provoke the conflict: They say it is a war not among Ukrainians, but between Ukraine and a belligerent Russia. Its resolution, it follows, is out of their hands. Traveling across the country, one hears abundant theories about how the U.S., Russia, or the two together might end the conflict. For example, that Trump and Putin will strike a deal. That they will trade Syria for Ukraine or Crimea for Donbas. That sooner or later Russia will implode as did the Soviet Union before it, and the occupied territories will fall back into Ukraine’s lap. Or that Trump will flex his muscles, make Ukraine’s fate a priority, and get Putin to bend.

Fine theories all, but with little if any basis in fact. Putin has neither the will nor the capacity to expel Iran from Syria (the presumed Russian quid for the U.S. lifting-of-Ukraine-sanctions quo). Trump’s possible intent and erratic statements notwithstanding, it’s hard to imagine an American president formally acquiescing to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in exchange for its withdrawal from Donbas. Russia has undeniable structural weaknesses, but is nowhere near the brink. That leaves Ukrainians with Trump. But a Trump who cares sufficiently about the future of Ukraine would be a different kind of Trump, and a different Trump is one thing he repeatedly has shown he cannot be.