Soldier in Odessa: « Trump doesn’t care about our lives »
A tea house with Chinese rituals and classical music in the speakers has become a meeting place for war veterans and soldiers at Permis in the port city of Odessa.
21-year-old Artem was 19 years old when he trampled on a mine outside Bachmut, the city lost to Russian forces in 2023 after months of bloody battles. The explosion blasted part of his right foot.
– After the hospital, I had a hard time meeting people. A friend took me here. We drank an oolong tea and I was completely taken, almost like drunk by the tea, says Artem.
Opposite Artem is sitting His friend in uniform, a 29-year-old with the soldier name « Freud ». The nickname is a wink to his wife who is a psychologist.
« Freud » was injured in a Russian slide bomb attack in 2023 when he sat in an underground bunker, but returned to the front and now serves in an intelligence unit.
– Artem showed me the tea house. It is welcoming to us soldiers. This is not the case in all civilian places, says « Freud » and pours out of a glass jug.
But even in the tea -house’s peaceful Buddhist environment, the reality of the war penetrates. Like many Ukrainians, Artem and « Freud » try to melt last weekend’s Russian attack on the steel town of Kryvyj Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj’s hometown whose name means « curved horn ».
– How can anyone believe that Russians want a ceasefire and peace when they kill children at the same time? wonders « Freud ».
20 people including nine children was killed in Kryvyj rih. Over 60 were injured. The attack ended up in a global media shadow because of the chaos with Trump’s trade tariffs, as well as the Israeli army’s killing of 15 health and relief workers in Gaza.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyj was worried when US ambassador Bridget Brink avoided mentioning Russia in his statement on the attack.
– The reaction from the US embassy was an unpleasant surprise. So strong country, so strong people – but such a weak reaction. They are even afraid to say the word « Russian » about a robot that killed children, Zelenskyj said.
Just a few days later, last Friday, the US Ukraine Ambassador resigned – but not because of disgust with Zelenskyj. Bridget Brink, Kievambassadör even during Joe Biden, did not endure the Trump administration’s new Ukrainine, According to the Financial Times.
Departure and Zelenskyj’s upset reflect a greater anger in Ukraine and Europe over the United States’ increasingly cremal -friendly attitude. At the same time, Zelenskyj is forced into a difficult balancing act.
Following the Disaster of the Disaster on February 28, when US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance ahead of rolling TV cameras accused Ukraine’s president of not being grateful enough, Ukraine has tried to repair the relationship with Trump.
The strategy: Don’t tease the moody ruler, caressed him.
Volodyyr Zelenskyj has forced to swallow that Donald Trump called him dictator and lied that it was really Ukraine who began the Russian invasion war. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff spreads lies that retrieved from the Kremlin’s propaganda manual, saying he « doesn’t see Putin as a bad guy ».
But for Ukraine it is important to bite, smile and pretend.
Otherwise, it can be like the beginning of March, after the White House Support, when the United States stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine. The result: hundreds of dead Ukrainian soldiers and a weakened position in Kursk, the Russian region where Ukraine entered this summer.
Ukraine had hoped Keep some of Kursk for future peace negotiations – but now Russia has almost completely driven out the Ukrainian forces.
In the tea room, the 29-year-old soldier « Freud » says what many Ukrainians think:
– Donald Trump doesn’t care about our lives. When he talks about peace and stopping the killing, it is about the fact that he himself wants to become more popular. He is just looking for the Nobel Peace Prize.
So straightforward, official Ukrainian representatives cannot express themselves. The fleet spokesperson Dmytro Pletentjuk weighs his words, when we meet him on a hamburger bar in the ground floor of a glassy but almost empty tourist hotel by the sea.
– The ceasefire agreement in the Black Sea has not really changed anything for us. We have never even seen any formal document about the ceasefire, he says.
The hotel’s speakers play Upps fast versions of old 80s and 90s hits. A Ukrainian warship passes past a few hundred meters into the sea, to the tones of The Verves « Bitter Sweet Symphony ».
The fleet spokesperson points to the ship and says a few words, followed by « Although you cannot write ». He often repeats that phrase. It is a sensitive position.
Donald Trump has promised his voters to fix peace. For official Ukraine, it is important to appear that they are « ready for peace » in Trump’s eyes-despite Russian attacks and that the US administration has actually aggravated Ukraine’s situation for any peace negotiations.
Trump’s Minister of Defense Pete Hegseth has already promised for Ukraine completely central things, such as that Ukraine cannot get Russian -checked land back or let into NATO.
On March 11, Ukraine still told Donald Trump’s proposal to unconditionally close the weapons over a 30-day period. But Russia did not agree.
On March 25, after a conversation in Saudi Arabia, the White House was able to announce its only small peaceful success: both Russia and Ukraine had accepted a « partial ceasefire in the Black Sea ».
But what does it mean?
The fleet spokesperson Dmytro Pletite -sick looks at the huge cargo cranes in Odessa’s harbor, a bit away from the hamburger bar where we sit.
On March 11, four crew men were killed there in the harbor, Syrian guys between the ages of 18 and 24. Their vessels MJ pins were loaded with Ukrainian wheat that was going to Algeria when a Russian robot struck.
– This is actually the last time the port was attacked. But just two days ago, the Russians shot ten cruise robots at us, from a warship in the Black Sea.
What does the Black Sea weapons rest mean if they are still shooting at you from warships?
The fleet spokesman shrugs.
– The problem is, as I said, that there is no formalized document.
The message appears between the lines: the so -called ceasefire in the Black Sea does not exist.
And even if it did, it would just be another agreement in Ukrainians’ eyes that Russia can violate. As Budapest settlement 1994, when Ukraine left their nuclear weapons Against Russia’s promise to never attack the neighboring country.
As if to emphasize the Russian threat, the wing alarm begins to howl in the middle of our interview. The wing alarm is mixed with the speaker music, it is Alphaville’s « Forever Young ».
The hotel’s employees are forcing out their guests on the wooden deck by the sea outside. A woman with children in umbrella car gets upset: Where is the shelter?
A security guard points to an information board that says the shelter is 1.7 kilometers away. The fleet spokesperson looks at his phone to understand the threat more accurately. The alarm is about Russian fighter aircraft, he says.
– Had there been ballistic robots we would have noticed it. They had already hit.
From the speakers, Alphaville continues:
« Do you really want to live forever? Forever, and ever? »
The Kremlin wants to see relieved sanctions before the ceasefire starts
USA: not likely with a ceasefire in several months
Russia’s response: Bombs against women, children and sailors
