On the side Ukrainians watch when Trump and Putin meet for conversations in Alaska

At five thousand miles from Alaska and feeling abandoned, the Ukrainians obeyed on Friday about the result of negotiations that were not invited to.

The talks between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will start later during the day with no place for Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski.

Trump signaled this week that “swap on the ground” can be on the table – it is largely interpreted to mean the transmission of Ukrainian land to Russia.

In Ukraine, where polls constantly show that about 95% of Putin’s distrust, there is a restless mix of deep skepticism about conversations and deep fatigue with war.

“This question touches me directly,” says the 30 -year -old Tatiana Bessonova from Pokrovsk – one of the Eastern cities whose future is a matter if the land is betrayed to Russia.

“My family,” she said.

The questions of the negotiations, the land swaps, the border re -routing were deeply painful for those who grew up in the affected regions, Besonova said.

“This is where I was born, my homeland,” she said. “These solutions may mean that I can never go home again. That I and many others will lose any hope of return.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that Trump has agreed When calling with European leaders, there are no territorial discounts without Ukraine’s approvalS And Trump said he intends to hold a second summit with Zelenski’s presence, first of all, to be agreed.

But Trump can be unpredictable. It is often said that they prefer the views of the person he has spoken to most recently. So there is little faith in Ukraine that he will not swing from Putin, especially at one to meet one.

The very fact of the closed door meeting was bad for Ukraine, said Olexander Merezhko, Ukrainian MP and chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs of the country. “Knowing Trump, he can change his mind very quickly. There is a great danger to us.”

Merezhko said he feared that it was Trump’s desire to be considered as a transaction, he may have concluded private agreements with the Russians. “Trump does not want disturbance and if nothing is achieved, he will be embarrassed,” the MP said. “The question is what can be in these agreements?”

Different opportunities for arrangements have been proposed that could lead to the termination of fire, from freezing of the current front lines – without the official recognition of the seized territory as a Russian – to a maximalist position of Russia, annexing four whole regions in Eastern and southern Ukraine.

Polls suggest that about 54% of Ukrainians support some form of compromise on Earth to accelerate the end of the war, but only with security guarantees from Ukraine’s international partners. Russia’s distrust is so deeply and widespread that many believe that an agreement to freeze the front lines without guarantee of security would simply be an invitation for Russia to rest, rearm and collect.

“If we freeze the front lines and territories of CEDE, it will only serve as a platform for a new offensive,” says Volodimir, a Ukrainian sniper serving in the eastern part of the country. In accordance with the military protocol, he asked to be identified only by his name.

“Many soldiers gave their lives to these territories, for the protection of our country,” Volodimir said. “A freezing would mean that demobilization will begin, the wounded and exhausted soldiers will be thrown away, the army will shrink and during one of these rotations the Russians will be blows again. But this time it will be the end of our country.”

In Ukraine, people from all spheres of life have made very difficult decisions about the reality of their future, said Anton Grusci, director of the International Institute of Sociology of Kiev, who regularly interviews the population for the war.

One of the most difficult solutions was to accept the idea of giving factual control over some Ukrainian soil to Russia, he said. “This is 20% of our land and these are our people. But Ukrainians show us that they are flexible, they tell us that they will accept different forms of security guarantees.”

According to the institute’s poll, 75% of Ukrainians are completely opposed to giving official property to Russia in every territory. Among the other 25%were some people who were pro -Russian, said Grusci, and some who were just so tired of the war that they felt difficult compromises were needed.

“My faith is that the war must be stopped in some way,” says Luibov Nazarenko, a 70 -year -old, retired factory worker from the Donetsk region, to the east of Ukraine.

“The further it becomes, the more it gets,” she said. “The Russians have already occupied the area of Herson and want Odessa. All this must be stopped so that the young people do not die.”

Nazarenko has a son who is still not fighting but can be called. She said she believed that three years in the war, with hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded only by the Ukrainian side, preserving life replaced all concerns about Earth.

“I just don’t want people to die,” she said. “Not the young people, not the old people, not the civilians who live on the front line.”

On Friday, when the clock tossed until the beginning of the conversations in Alaska, the Ukrainians celebrated the sacred day – the day of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin. This is the day when it is believed to listen to the prayers of all who need it.

In the monastery “St. Michael”, a church in Central Kiev, priest Alexander Beskrovni was a leading prayer for several dozen people. He then said it was difficult to find words to describe the injustice of the upcoming conversations, but he called it “great injustice and madness” to leave Zelenski out.

Like others, the priest recognized the gloomy reality facing Ukraine, he said that he was unable to restore his stolen territory with force. So some deals had to be made. But we have to think less about Earth, said Beskrovni and more about humans.

“If we are forced to give way to territory – if the world allows it – the most important thing is to gather all our people. The world must help us to bring out our people.”

In his prayers on Friday, the priest does not refer directly to the talks in Alaska, he said, “There are no names or places of meetings.”

But he prays for the future power of Ukraine, he said. “On the front line and in the diplomatic space.”