'Looks like we're officially screwed now': Trump's initiative to end the war is being experienced in Ukraine

Kramatorsk (Ukraine)"Looks like we're officially screwed now," say customers at a gas station in Ukraine, one of them checking Donald Trump's latest statements on his phone. Suddenly, in the distance, another explosion is heard. The gas station has become a landmark. The Russians tried repeatedly to destroy it, but without success. Only rubble remains around it, but the building and the fuel pumps are still there, intact, as if they had some kind of inexplicable immunity to bombs. At the gas station, soldiers can drink coffee for free. In fact, many joke that its employees should be officially recognized for their "contribution to combat."

"As if it's something new. We've been screwed for a long time," replies Roman, a 23-year-old soldier from Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, with a smile. His tone suggests that he does not share the general pessimism.

In the battered city of Donetsk, also in the east of the country, the news that reaches us is filtered by emotional wear and tear and accumulated trauma. Perhaps because life here is reduced to the essentials: surviving, fulfilling missions and obeying orders from an infinite hierarchy. Or perhaps because indifference is just a mask, a way of enduring the horror without breaking down.

"Do you really think anyone cares about us?" asks a soldier bitterly, before adding that if Russia wins the war, those who have fought and resisted in the Donbas region will have a very bleak future. Disillusionment with the allies has spread both among the military and among the civilian population. They all reach the same conclusion: "In this war, Ukraine can only count on itself."

A taboo subject

Meanwhile, in Kiev, the capital, the discussion of a possible peace has become a taboo subject. The question is avoided, perhaps to avoid the abyss of despair. "I just try not to think about it," says Olga, 32, trying to avoid the question. Exhaustion is evident. Ukrainians want peace, but not at any price.

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced that he had spoken with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and that They had agreed to "immediately" begin negotiations for a peace agreement in Ukraine. The announcement fell like a bucket of cold water on the European UnionFor Ukrainians, it was confirmation of a fear long discussed on social media and in everyday conversations. The reality that many did not want to accept has suddenly become inescapable.

The hardest hit are the internally displaced. "It seems that now we are going to become destitute forever," laments Oksana, a shop assistant in Kramatorsk in the east of the country. At the beginning of the war, she fled the Russian-occupied town of Mariupolo and had hoped to return one day.

In another corner of Ukraine, Olena, a 53-year-old teacher, also feels her hopes crumbling. She left her town of Berdyansk after the Russians invaded it. A few months ago, her husband was mobilised and is currently fighting near Chasiv Iar, also in the east. Her life is spent between anxiety about what might happen to her husband and the desire for the end of the war to be reunited with him. On the other hand, she also dreams of returning to her hometown.

Some still hope that the European Union can do something, and predict that the conflict will not be resolved so easily: sooner or later Russia will resume hostilities even if it signs a peace agreement, they warn. "I cannot help but draw historical parallels. They will stop the war now, but in time everything will start again. Just remember the Chechen wars. This conflict is a very lucrative business for many," says Oleksandr, who is a taxi driver in Kramatorsk but who in the past served in the armed forces.

Following Trump's victory in the presidential election last November, many Ukrainians had hoped for a diplomatic solution to the war. However, Elon Musk's tweets on X mocking or disparaging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the reduction of vital USAID aid in Ukraine raised suspicions that the situation would only get worse. Indeed, many regional media outlets that depended on USAID funding are on the verge of collapse, and hundreds of workers have been left without work. Experts warn that this undoubtedly weakens Ukrainian democracy and civil society.

A symbolic detail

Before making his announcement, Trump spoke first with Putin and then with Zelensky, in that order. A symbolic detail that highlights his priorities, according to the Ukrainians, who also believe that peace will be decided without Kiev's participation. However, the Ukrainian president has tried to downplay this gesture by Trump.

At a press conference at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant in western Ukraine, Zelensky clarified that Trump will speak "simultaneously" with both leaders: "I really think that his priority is Ukraine because we are at war, although he said that he wanted to talk to both of them." On the other hand, the former Minister of Economy and adviser to the Office of the President, Timofii Milovanov, was less diplomatic in his assessment: "That looks bad. It seems that they want to sell us out, and for free."

At that moment, however, people in Ukraine were distracted by their own internal battles. Also on Wednesday, coincidentally, Zelensky decided to impose sanctions against his main political rival, former President Petro Poroshenko, which initially overshadowed the US president's announcement of negotiations to end the war. When the news began to spread, all kinds of ironic comments arose, which have become one of the main antidotes to that war. "Dear compatriots, if you go into a pit, at least take a shovel with you so you can dig a trench," wrote one user to X. The most repeated joke in recent days, however, is that it is still too early to go into the grave, because the worst is yet to come.