Ukraine after the war: scenarios for the development of events and what you should think about now

The end of hostilities in Ukraine will not be an automatic starting point for its reconstruction. This will be the moment of transition to a new period, which can develop according to various scenarios. Part of society expects renewal, some – a return to pre-war times, but none of these options will come by itself. What will begin after the war will directly depend on the decisions that must be planned now. Everything will depend on the actions or inaction of the political leadership, as well as the ability of citizens to critically assess the situation and participate in the formation of the post-war reality. Let’s consider two possible scenarios of events after the end of the war: optimistic – with the modernization of the political and economic system, restarting state institutions and involving citizens in decision-making, and negative – with political inertia, in which public administration will continue to be reduced to imitation of processes and empty slogans, the economy is stuck between scattered money and the absence of strategic decisions, total corruption and the growth of distrust and the final gap between the state and society.

An optimistic scenario

Post-war Ukraine in its best version will be a state that has gone through a terrible war, but has preserved itself and acquired a deeper, fundamental quality. Its future in this scenario is shaped by profound changes within society, institutions, and the coordinate system itself. It will be a Ukraine that not only recovered, but came out of the war different – stronger, more experienced and freed from old ballasts.

State and institutions

An optimistic scenario predicts that after the war, Ukraine will not repeat the tradition of “restoring the past”, but will take advantage of the chance to rethink the very content of statehood. In the country, there will be a deep moral demand for the state to be not just a management apparatus, but a form of collective responsibility. Perhaps in such a future we will see a radical renewal of the political class: representatives of the military, volunteers, intelligentsia, who will come to the parliament and the government to actually change the agenda of the new country and address the people. A constitutional reform will be carried out, which will finally establish an effective mechanism for the balance of power, the real responsibility of the president and the independence of the courts. The management system will emerge from the shadow of backroom agreements and post-Soviet paternalism.

The digital transformation of the state will receive a new meaning — not only as a convenience, but as a guarantee of transparency. State bodies will become more efficient, compact, with a high degree of responsibility. Experienced professionals, real managers will come to them. Administrative reform, decentralization and a complete renewal of the anti-corruption architecture will make it possible to destroy the systems of feudal governance on the ground.

Economy

Ukraine will begin to develop its economy and industry, attract billions of investments from the West. The Marshall Plans will no longer be just a theoretical model — with the support of foreign partners, the country receives long-term reconstruction programs. But unlike previous decades, these resources are not dissolved in schemes and fictitious contracts — they are used to create new infrastructure, green energy, and high-tech production.

After World War II, America’s recovery program, which went down in history as the Marshall Plan, was more than just monetary aid. Its essence was different: the US gave Western Europe not only funds, but a structure in which funding was tightly tied to change. At the same time, money was not just handed out, it was managed through joint coordination mechanisms, specific projects, and the demand for the governments themselves to modernize management, open the economy, and stabilize the financial system. It wasn’t a rescue, but a long-term reboot tool, and that’s why it worked.

Therefore, foreign aid will not be embezzled, but honestly invested in destroyed infrastructure, production, education, energy efficiency. The main goal of this will be the result, not the development of money by officials, a series of projects useful for Ukrainians, but real, not on paper.

Ukraine is not trying to revive the pre-war economy as it was, but will build it anew: transition to a value-added economy, new industrialization, rejection of dependence on raw materials. Domestic mechanical engineering, defense industry, IT, agricultural sector and pharmaceuticals are developing synergistically. Ukraine is becoming a participant in large European production chains, in particular in the field of energy, logistics, transport, and not an agrarian state.

After the war, business and the state conclude a new social contract. Entrepreneurs receive guarantees of fair taxes and protection of property rights, but take responsibility for the development of communities, local infrastructure and fair wages. The model of oligarchic capitalism is disappearing — an economy of free but regulated competition is taking its place.

Army and security

War leaves a deep mark on everything related to security. That is why the Ukrainian army is becoming part of the European security architecture — modernized, high-tech, integrated. The post-war army will not only be a professional army with powerful reserves, but also a part of social ethics, serving in it will become prestigious. Veterans return to civilian life with respect and support, their experience is integrated into management, education, business. Security is no longer perceived as a matter of “security forces”, it is becoming an element of civil culture: from cyber security to crisis response at the local level.

The law enforcement system is going through “military lustration”: those who discredited themselves in the rear are no longer working. Instead of punitive logic, an approach of protecting the rights and safety of citizens, as well as transparent justice, is being formed. A qualitatively new judicial system and a system of military justice adapted to the conditions of hybrid threats are being formed. The staff is changing – professionals and people with a clean reputation are coming.

Education, science, culture

One of the most important consequences of the war is the realization of the role of the humanitarian sphere as a pillar of identity, vitality, and meaning. After the war, Ukraine invested in education and science as a sphere of strategic sovereignty. Schools and universities no longer work by inertia, they become centers of critical thinking, social partnership, new formats of education.

The Ukrainian language, history, and culture become not a tool of ideology, but a way of self-discovery and openness. At the same time, cultural diplomacy becomes a separate direction of politics — Ukraine has something to say to the world not only about heroism, but also about the sustainability of culture, the ability for dialogue and renewal.

Scientific institutions emerge from the shadow of bureaucracy and become platforms for the development of technical education, defense technologies, and medical innovations. With the return of refugees, the “reverse of intelligence” begins – those who left bring back not only knowledge, but also new models of management, experience and networks.

Human dimension

In this scenario, post-war Ukrainian society is going through a great wave of reflection and rethinking. The trauma of war is not repressed, but understood. A high-quality system of psychological support, rehabilitation, and social inclusion is emerging. Veterans, children, women, immigrants are not marginals, but new faces of public space.

People return home not only because “there is a place to live”, but because there is a feeling: they are needed here. Ukraine is becoming a country where life after the war is not survival, but planning for the future. A new solidarity is born — not as an impulse, but as a habit.

In this future, the nation becomes not a closed community, but an open structure capable of integrating new people, meanings, and challenges. Ukraine is becoming the country where the tragedy did not end, but started a new historical cycle. And most importantly, a common state ideology is emerging that will reconcile the different views of Ukrainians.

For today’s Ukraine, all this sounds more like a utopia and an abstract construction from a textbook on political theory – it is too unlike the reality we are used to. But even in spite of skepticism, fatigue and the memory of frustrated expectations, sometimes you have to ask yourself the question: what if suddenly something goes differently this time and it really comes true? Not because someone from outside will change the country, but because a part of society is no longer ready to play by the old rules and will begin to analyze, think critically and act.

Pessimistic scenario

There are many examples in history when, after a long war, the nation was not consumed by a rush forward, but by a viscous drag into old problems with only new scars. In this scenario, Ukraine formally experiences the end of the war, possibly even with certain foreign policy concessions or a conditional compromise. But instead of internal recovery, the country is entering a period of chaotic fatigue, continued institutional decay, and moral exhaustion. It will be a one-time explosion catastrophe, and a slow decomposition process.

State: from fatigue to degradation

In this scenario, the war ends in a complex and lengthy process of negotiations, frozen fronts, or unclear compromises. Confidence in the government continues to plummet, even though online elections are being held. Veterans, volunteers, active citizens who do not feel the realization of their sacrifice and once again found themselves out of power, gradually withdraw from political participation.

The political class is quickly returning to the old logic: backrooms, divisions and cutting of the state budget, clans, soft dictatorships under the guise of empty rhetoric of stability. Those who made a profit on the war front, move to the post-war front of the deryban. The parliament becomes a platform for the revenge of old factions, the judiciary completely loses its independence, and the reforms are curtailed as “untimely in the period of difficult recovery.”

Citizens are left with either apathy, flight, or manifestations of mass dissatisfaction. The majority chooses survival through informal agreements, kickbacks, loss of faith in institutions.

Economy

Ukraine receives post-war aid, but these billions, scattered among opaque contracts, development schemes, dubious priorities, do not create a new economy. The result is large-scale construction projects that enrich a narrow circle of companies, but do not change the structure of production.

A business that survives a war does not receive any new social contract. The state continues to press – with inspections, taxes, manipulative fiscal policy. Entrepreneurs flee to the shadows or abroad. Attempts to stimulate the return of investors fail due to corruption, the absence of a legal system and the unpredictability of regulatory policies.

The oligarchs, briefly pushed out of the political landscape by the war, are making a comeback. Media control, behind-the-scenes agreements, symbiosis with officials is once again shaping economic reality. Ukraine finally loses the chance for new industrialization, remaining a raw material appendage for partners and a migration donor for Europe.

Power structures

In this scenario, the army turns from a national symbol into a social problem. Many veterans lack employment, support and rehabilitation. Instead, there is PTSD, mistrust of the authorities, anger at the victim’s lack of recognition, and lack of fulfillment. The state is not able to integrate them, so some settle in criminal structures, some in self-organized networks with their own hierarchy, mistrust of the law and a sense of betrayal. As a result – a sharp increase in the level of crime.

The defense system is demoralized. There is no clear perspective and no real strategy for future security. Budget cuts lead to degradation of technical potential. Part of the military structures turns into a source of private power — and over time, paramilitary groups with political ambitions emerge. Against the background of a weak central government, they can become a factor of pressure or even division.

The law enforcement system remains weak, unprofessional, unreformed, clan-based. Trust in the police and courts is finally lost, and the population begins to independently resolve disputes – through force mechanisms, “concepts”, authorities. In fact, a dual management system is being formed: official and informal.

Education, culture, humanitarian sphere

In this version, the post-war country is unable to invest in education and culture. The budget is being cut, schools and universities are merging and closing, leaving tens of thousands of teachers without work. The educational space is fragmenting, fleeing online or falling into decline. The quality of knowledge drops sharply, some young people simply go abroad or do not return.

Cultural policy degenerates into imitations — celebration of patriotic holidays without reflection, memorials without living memory. The deep meanings of war are not understood, but are displaced by superficial clichés or tabooed as traumatic. As a result, the generation that survived the front or the loss remains alone with its pain.

Science actually disappears as an independent institution. Young scientists emigrate en masse, research freezes. Ukraine is losing not only a generation of intellectuals, but also any claim to independence in global knowledge.

Human dimension

The most acute consequence of such a scenario is the rupture of human horizons. Most young people do not see a future in the country. Even those who survived the war at home decide to leave after it. The demographic hole, the loss of specialists, the outflow of mothers with children are not a temporary phenomenon, but a new norm.

Ukrainians are losing not only resources, but also meanings. After many years of tension comes emotional and moral fatigue. People lock themselves in personal survival, avoid politics, withdraw from public life. From a community that experienced a heroic rise, an atomized society is formed, in which there is no hope.

In this future, war leaves not only ruins, but also an unhealed wound that slowly but deeply destroys a country’s potential. Not only the chance for development is lost, but also the belief that it is possible at all. All this will cause popular riots, the consequences of which can already be imagined.

A choice that cannot be postponed

What Ukraine will become after the war should be decided not after the war, not when the guns fall silent, but now. Society must ask itself uncomfortable questions: who are we, what will be the next stage, what are we ready to do to avoid repeating the past, what future do we choose for ourselves and our children?

Political responsibility for the contours of this post-war country already rests with the authorities. Not only in terms of army management or international negotiations, but above all in how state institutions are formed, who gets public weight, how the government behaves with trust, which it is gradually losing.

After the war, a period will begin that will become the most important, most vulnerable and most dangerous stage for Ukraine. It is when the majority of people are morally exhausted, the state is drained of blood, the army is removed from the public eye, and the economy is unbalanced, that the choice will become: where and how we go next.

If the authorities do not take clear, open and verifiable steps by that time – not in the sphere of PR, but in real cleansing, then all the energy accumulated during the years of the war will turn against it in the upcoming elections. Not because of a conspiracy or hostile propaganda, but because a system that has not changed in the face of the greatest historical crisis will be perceived as never able to change. At the same time, the greatest danger is not that “the wrong ones” may come to power, but that society will no longer trust anyone. The total extinction of hope is not a figurative comparison, but a very real political condition, when the voter votes with indifference, despair, or does not vote at all. When the parliament is formed not as a representative body, but the result of an emotional collapse. And after that, no help from the West, no guarantees of security or reconstruction work, because the state simply does not have institutions that could stay the course.

That is why the government must now (not later) give a clear answer to a number of questions that have long been overdue: is it necessary to return to the people face to face, who and how should make key decisions, on what grounds are resource managers formed, how does competition work in state structures, how can society influence the formation of the future political architecture, when corruption is eradicated? If these issues are once again postponed until “better times”, then after the war there will not be a “better time”, but even worse than it was before it.

Society, too, cannot go back the way it went before the war. In 2019, the majority of people voted not for the content of election programs, but for intuition, for “let’s try someone else, if not the one who was”. At the same time, there was almost no choice then. At that time, there was still the illusion that quick solutions were possible. After the war, such an illusion should no longer exist. If people do not analyze and think critically again, carefully approach their choices, do not read the program and real biographies to the end, do not understand, do not ask themselves the question “who is behind this face, slogan, structure”, they will finally remove themselves from historical responsibility. Then those who make the loudest promises and have a lot of money will win again. Those who are not going to be responsible for their words and consequences will rule. And this time everything will be without the illusion that everything can be fixed at the next election, because the next time there may not be…