Extract from ABC News
Khrystyna and her family at their home in Kupiansk before their lives were turned upside down by Russian occupation. (Supplied)
Khrystyna and her husband had just renovated their house by the lake.
They had a tradition of taking their three young children into the forest for adventures over the weekends.
And the family business was doing well. The couple was about to expand their market stalls in town selling kids' clothing.
Then, from one day to the next, everything changed.
Khrystyna's town of Kupiansk was one of the first Ukrainian territories to face Russian occupation at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
And immediately, the "Russification" began.
Khrystyna and her daughter in a photo rescued before Russian forces occupied their town. (Supplied)
Authorities handed out Russian passports, forcibly imposing citizenship on Ukrainian residents.
And schools were made to teach a Russian curriculum of propaganda.
Any resistance was met with threats and violence, Khrystyna said.
The 25-year-old, who is going by her first name only for security reasons, was threatened for speaking Ukrainian.
"I heard and saw several times people being struck in the street, or how someone had a bag put over their head and was then taken in an unknown direction," she told the ABC.
Authorities threatened to take Khrystyna's children away if she did not agree for them to learn the Russian curriculum at school. (Supplied)
The town in the Kharkiv region was transformed into what Moscow deemed "little Russia", before being retaken by Ukraine in a September 2022 counteroffensive.
Some Ukrainians managed to evacuate, some stuck it out, others disappeared.
"My friends' relatives were taken prisoner and detained for five days," Khrystyna said.
"Another friend's son was also taken into civilian captivity and he is still missing."
After more than 1,000 days of war, about 1.5 million Ukrainians are still living under Russian occupation, according to the United Nations.
And Donald Trump's return to the White House is sparking fears about what their future may hold.
A museum in Kupiansk lies in ruins. (Reuters: Viktoriia Yakymenko)
Analysts and insider reports have widely speculated that the president-elect's promised plans for immediate peace involve Ukraine ceding territory to Russia or freezing the conflict.
For civilians in occupied areas, both of those could be "relatively bad outcomes".
Russia holds one-fifth of Ukraine
Russia still occupies more than 110,000 square kilometres — about 20 per cent — of Ukraine's territory.
That is a chunk of land larger than South Australia.
It includes Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
About 80 per cent of Donbas is under Russian control, and more than 70 per cent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Khrystyna's experiences have been echoed across Ukraine's occupied regions.
There are numerous reports and documented testimonies from civilians who have lived in Russian-held territory.
Human rights organisations, Ukrainian prosecutors and government officials have found evidence of arbitrary or unlawful killings, disappearances, torture, rape, sexual violence, re-education, and children being sent to live in Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations its forces have committed human rights violations during the invasion.
A war crimes prosecutor stands as experts work at a forest grave site during an exhumation in the town of Izium in Ukraine. (Reuters: Umit Bektas)
The International Criminal Court last year issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
The Kremlin slammed the allegations as "outrageous and unacceptable".
Jessica Genauer, senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University, said the outlook for Ukrainians in occupied territories was "bleak".
"I don't see any outcome at this stage where Russian occupying forces are entirely evicted from Ukrainian territory," she told the ABC.
A torture chamber used during Russia's occupation of Izium. (ABC News: Matthew Davis)
What ceding territory would look like
During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine "in a day", but never gave further details.
Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented a "victory plan" that included a refusal to cede Ukraine's territories and sovereignty.
Under Russia's terms, Mr Putin has stated Kyiv must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from territory in the four Ukrainian regions currently controlled by Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated Donald Trump on his presidential election win. (AP Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
Dr Genauer said Trump would likely pressure Ukraine to "formally" cede some territory.
A formal agreement would mean that the sovereign borders would shift, and the occupied territory would officially be recognised as Russia.
"So Russia expands and Ukraine shrinks," she said.
Ukrainians living in those regions would need to gain Russian citizenship or be treated like foreigners in Russia.
Under formal arrangements, Ukrainians would likely be given the opportunity to leave before the territory was handed over, Dr Genauer said.
The birth certificate of baby born to a Ukrainian woman during Russian occupation in the Kherson region, which she was forced to make Russian. (Reuters: Lisi Niesner)
About 59 per cent of Ukrainians now support entering peace negotiations with Russia, according to a study by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) published in August.
Based on about 2,500 nationwide interviews, 60 per cent were unwilling to cede Crimea or any parts of eastern Ukraine.
Seventy-seven per cent said negotiations based on the current territorial status quo were unacceptable.
So, formally handing over territory would be difficult for Mr Zelenskyy, Dr Genauer said.
"I don't think Zelenskyy will be able to agree to such a political settlement without his population's consent," she said.
What she instead believes could happen is an unofficial freezing of the conflict along the front lines, allowing Russia to maintain control of Ukrainian territory.
"That's probably, in some ways, the best-case scenario that President Zelenskyy can expect under a Trump presidency," she said.
But from a Ukrainian perspective, they would both be "relatively bad outcomes".
Hundreds of bodies were found in mass graves after the Russian occupation of Izium. (ABC News: Matthew Davis)
Life under a frozen conflict
Freezing the conflict would mean both sides agree to pause the fighting.
It would likely put residents living in occupation territories in a grey zone, Dr Genauer said.
"They are going to be in a very difficult and quite compromised position."
Their political and citizenship status would be in limbo, and Russian forces would remain present.
And it would be difficult to protect Ukrainian citizens from possible human rights abuses.
"There will be no way to guarantee without a formal agreement that international human rights law will be respected, and that human rights abuses will not be perpetrated," Dr Genauer said.
"So it would either be up to people to escape back into Ukrainian territory, and that in itself can be a dangerous journey, or to try to manage within those Russian-occupied spaces."
Aid organisations say there is no guarantee residents can be evacuated from occupied territories. (Supplied: Helping to Leave)
Getting out a 'lottery'
Sofiia Gedzenko volunteers with Helping to Leave, an organisation that assists Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories to evacuate and settle into new homes.
The 31-year-old from Odesa said the stories coming out of occupied regions were "truly devastating".
She described the conditions in many towns as a humanitarian disaster.
"Especially in the regions closer to the front line, often there is no running water, there is no electricity, there is no heating, and the winter is coming," she told the ABC.
Sofiia Gedzenko often helps older Ukrainians or people with mobility evacuate from occupied territories. (Supplied: Helping them Leave)
Ms Gedzenko has been helping people with evacuations for more than two years, and said there was never a guarantee they could get them out.
Aid organisations are not allowed inside so it comes down to what happens at the checkpoints.
"It's always like a lottery for people if they will be allowed to leave or not," Ms Gedzenko said.
"We cannot guarantee anything, especially if it's younger people. There's always a danger.
"People have been abducted there, and there are cases when they were abducted and they're kept in some places and they're tortured. Sometimes they let them out afterwards, sometimes not."
Helping to Leave often assists older people and residents with mobility issues evacuate from occupied territories. (Supplied: Helping to Leave)
She said the organisation tried to prepare people and advised them what to delete from their phones.
Anyone under 60 years old could be considered a military threat and treated that way, she said.
Ms Gedzenko said freezing the conflict and handing territories to Russia would be "inhumane".
"Territories are people. We are not just talking about the piece of land," she said.
"We're talking about people who have a right to live in their country and not be occupied."
Aid organisations are not given access to occupied territories. (Supplied: Helping to Leave)
Where European allies stand
Support for negotiations on a ceasefire has been growing in the West.
But NATO members and European allies are yet to articulate what it may look like.
At the recent European Political Community summit in Budapest, leaders called for stronger action to defend their continent and support Ukraine.
But there has still been no clear-cut path for Ukraine to join NATO, which analysts say is crucial to avoid further Russian aggression.
Mr Zelenskyy's push for membership is part of a long-term goal for Ukraine to gain security from Russia.
But NATO has said Ukraine cannot join while it is at war because it would draw the alliance directly into conflict with Russia.
The Washington Post spoke to several current and former European and NATO diplomats after the summit who said there was also a quiet but growing shift towards allies considering trading land for peace.
Yuliya Bidenko, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) Europe, said Western allies were avoiding NATO plans and lacking unity on alternative options.
"In some European capitals, the discussions have gone from either security guarantees or attempts to regain territories to neither of those," she said.
"The inability to recover the territories occupied by Russia is the most sensitive and problematic issue for Ukrainian society and will be a challenge for the international order."
Khrystyna and her children have resettled in Kharkiv. (Supplied)
With her home destroyed in the fighting, Khrystyna finally left Kupiansk and settled in Kharkiv where there were better options for her children.
She now helps others evacuate occupied territories and offers any support she can.
Khrystyna says many people "think that their lives are over" but she does not want them to lose hope.
"Giving up territories is not the answer," she said.
"Our country needs peace and safety."
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