WorthyNews: Ukrainians Feeling Humiliated After Trump-Zelensky Meeting (Worthy News In-Depth)

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By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukrainians fear the United States has turned into an adversary after their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was shown the door at the White House after U.S. President Donald J. Trump decided he had been “disrespectful.”

Evelyn, a 23-year-old pharmacist in the southeastern city of Kryvyi Rih, suggested that she would sleep less safe. “I think that Trump just wants to hand us over to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and dances to his tune. Many people in Ukraine think so. After their conversation, it became even more scary to be in Ukraine,” she told Worthy News.

“I think our president is no gift either, but Putin is much worse. And the fact that Trump is on his side upsets us all. That’s obvious,” Evelyn stressed.

“I live with my parents for now; I’m scared to be alone because of the war,” she added. Kryvyi Rih is my city. Sometimes, it flies into residential buildings at night. It’s scary and very loud,” Evelyn explained, referring to drones and missiles hitting her area.

In recent days, Russia launched a missile attack on her city located in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast area, killing one person and injuring five others. She hoped to see the war end under Trump and start a family one day. “I have a dog now,” she added.

Evelyn, who didn’t use her last name, isn’t the only Ukrainian upset at Friday’s Oval Office meeting. “I think that Zelenskyy defended our position as a Ukrainian nation. Despite the pressure that was put on him, that was most likely planned before his arrival, he could hold his face,” said Hlib, a resident of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in a video interview with the Global News outlet.

Ivan agrees. “This was not on a level of international diplomacy. You know, it looked like fighting a hoodlum from the block,” he complained.

MASSIVE STRIKES

Russia launched massive strikes in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, targeting energy facilities last week in which at least one person was injured, the regional governor said.

Residents like Ivan long for peace in a war that is believed to have killed and injured some 1 million people on both sides since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. However, Ivan fears that reaching a peace deal with Trump in the White House will be difficult. “Like in The Godfather movie. [Zelenskyy was told] ‘Kiss the ring. If you don’t, get out,’ Ivan added.

Stanislav Chabanenko, a former soldier, said, “It was very hard to watch how our President Zelenskyy talked to the U.S. president. It was a very important meeting for us who all believe in victory and hope we could win in this war. In my opinion, the U.S. president did not support us; he betrayed us.”

“To be honest, if I were in our president’s place, I would have crashed everything over there,” added Ella Kasantseva, speaking in Kyiv, the capital. “The way they behaved themselves. Of course, I support Zelenskyy. I don’t know how he held himself in such conditions. He did good. There was no other way to react. The Americans don’t know the real situation or what is happening here. They don’t understand. Everything is beautiful for them. He tried to tell, to persuade them. They must see it all for themselves.”

Viktoriia in Kharkiv agrees: “I support our president. He did an unexpected thing, but he did it right. Maybe it will be hard for Ukraine. But it is right not to sell out, not to give up, not to fall on your knees, but to be a patriot of your country.

“I think Trump’s behavior was childish,” argued Sofiia, a Kharkiv resident. “It’s like: ‘I don’t like what I am told, I stomp my feet, and that’s it. I want everything to be my way.’ They don’t understand that the Russians pose a danger, not only to us to Europe but to them [the Americans] also.”

Trump has said that Zelenskyy has an approval rating of “four percent.” Yet it didn’t seem easy for reporters in several cities to find Ukrainians who disagree with Zelenskyy’s attitude.

FEELING HUMILIATED

Nataliya Ligachova, editor-in-chief of the online newspaper “Detector Media,” suggested that many Ukrainians felt humiliated by Trump. “You can’t talk like that to the president of a country that has already sacrificed thousands and thousands of lives not only for our freedom but also for the freedom, peace, and prosperity of the Western world.”

Yet Ilya Neshodowskyy, director of the Institute for Socio-Economic Transformation in Kyiv, had mixed feelings about the meeting. “It was right for Zelenskyy to defend our dignity, but it was a mistake for him to get involved in an argument,” he said. The agreement would not have guaranteed us any security, and Trump did not want to supply us with more weapons before or after this agreement.”

However, he said that because of the meeting’s outcome, Trump could now partially lift the sanctions on Russia. “But then the question would arise, in exchange for what?”

Zelenskyy and his administration share those concerns, saying in separate statements that Ukraine needs security guarantees beyond the $500 billion dollar mineral deal that Trump says he wants to sign with Kyiv.

However, local Journalist Serhiy Rudenko claimed Trump realized that he would not be able to fulfill campaign promises to his voters to end the war in Ukraine soon. “This is a play performed by two actors, Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance. They don’t need a minerals agreement. They just need a scapegoat for their incompetence and cowardice in the face of Vladimir Putin. That is why they chose Zelenskyy,” Rudenko said.

Ukrainians have begun joking about what they view as “provocations” by the Trump administration, with some ironically collecting money for their country’s nuclear rearmament. Oleh Horochowskyy, co-founder of Monobank, announced that his fundraising campaign for the production of atomic weapons had raised two million hryvnias (around $48,000) in the first 30 minutes. That morning, he wrote on the social media platform Telegram: “10 million in 10 hours!”

In 1994, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan surrendered all the nuclear weapons on their territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union to Russia by signing the Budapest Memorandum and the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Budapest. In return, the U.S. and Russia, in particular, guaranteed their territorial integrity.

Fast forward, the world has changed for many Ukrainians. Yet back in Kryvyi Rih, where missiles and drones are often heard at night, Evelyn hasn’t given up hope. “Today, my day passed calmly. I could go safely to work.”

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