Following a flurry of controversial statements aired by the Trump administration, Kyiv has been left feeling as though it has been dumped by it once erstwhile ally in its ongoing battle to survive as a nation against Russia’s war machine.
“I’m a little bit shocked. I do not know if it is a game. But what he is saying I do not like,” said Ivan Kobrin, a 28-year-old IT worker.
Particularly galling, according to Kobrin, is Trump’s public sympathy for Russian losses, both future and past, all while Ukraine continues to be occupied and attacked.
“He [Trump] is repeating the Russian narrative, Russian propoganda,” Kobrin said.
With his mother and grandmother still living in Sumy Region, on the border with Russia, Kobrin, an only child, is concerned that his home town may again be invaded by Russian forces.
“How can we be sure that everythng will be ok. I cannot imagine how the security measures will work,” he exclaims.
Many here had long suspected that Ukraine’s relationship with Washington would go from romantic to realistic with the election of Trump. Some welcomed more decisiveness following the a-day-late-a -weapon-short approach of the Biden administration.
But few expected such a naked about face in US rhetoric.
Ukraine’s hopes of returning territory captured by the Russian army, much less one day joining Nato, have suddenly evaporated – like the dreams of naive school boy.
It’s one thing to be dumped by your partner, but quite another for Ukraine to be left at the mercy of its violent Russian ex.
Even the air defense systems that have at least partly shielded the capital against Russia’s all out war on its neighbor no longer seem to be a given.
And any albeit faint hopes that Putin might show a more benevolent side once engaged by the seemingly even-handed Trump, who appears intent on positioning the US as an arbitrer rather than an ally, were quickly dispelled just two days earlier, on February 12th, when Russian ballistic missiles came crashing down on the Ukrainian capital, killing one and injuring several others.
It was loud, shook me from my bed, and was all the more frightening now that it appears we may get more of the same without the protection of US Patriot missiles systems.
Today’s news that a Russian drone attack had damaged the sarcophagus at the infamous Chernobyl nuclear station has added to that fear.
Many here were particulary shocked by the new American president’s charm offensive toward a man who is widely seen internationally as a war criminal.
“It is humiliating for us, for me, for Ukraine to see Trump praise Putin as a good man who wants peace,” says Father Alexey, a Ukrainian priest.
“I understand the necessity of meeting with him to speak but not to praise this evil man, a criminal, who is possessed by power and who wants only to destroy Ukraine.”
“The war will end, sooner of later, but I’m worried [about] what will be later. It’s clear that Russia will remain, it is our neighbor. But Ukraine could become a place of shadows and darkness where no one will want to live.”
With millions of Ukrainians still living as refugees abroad and many cities in the country’s east having been reduced to rubble, that future may already be here.
February 14th in Kyiv is traditionally the scene of bouquet toting pedestrians rushing to meet their beloved in some romantic setting.
These days it marks the runup to the anniversary of Russia’s all out and unprovoked invasion on February 24, 2022, upturning millions of lives, while dispatching soldier and civilian alike, their bodies shredded by mines dropped by drones, their children incinerated by missiles while they slept.
One-legged men are now common on city streets, and the photos of fallen soldiers take up more and more space on church walls.
Some here had hoped for a more decisive position from Washington, following years of Joe Biden’s a-day-late-and-a-weapon-short policy, which had kept Ukraine in the fight but always short of victory.
But as the international media increasingly focused on Russian “victories” in the east east, Ukrainians began to suspect that the initial full blown commitment of Washington to their cause was waning.
Trump’s 90-minute phone call with Putin and his lavish praise of the man who denied he was planning to attack right up to the moment the bombs started falling on Ukraine was like a slap in the face that rang out louder than any of the countless explosions we have all grown so used to here.
“He [Trump] says one thing one day and something completely different the next. There is nothing consistent about him,” says Tolik a rough hewn 70-something Grandfather who once served in the Soviet navy.
When asked what Trump should do if he really wants peace, he tells me: “If he [Trump] would put in place serious sanctions, economic ones, and give us the arms we need, the war would end. That’s it.”
“I don’t want to be [one day find myself] buying bread with Russian rubles.”
