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Olena Matvienko knows that she has little to go home.
The Russians captured his city, Mariupol, shortly after invading Ukraine. A Russian missile destroyed its old apartment building. Her daughter and granddaughter were killed in the city. However, Ms. Matvienko, 66, would like to come back.
But after the comments of President Trump and his defense secretary reported this week that Ukraine should abandon the territory as part of a peace agreement, she fears that Mariupol is part of Russia. And she is horrified.
“If part of America was removed from them, I would like to see how they would react,” said Malvienko, one of the 4.6 million Ukrainians who have fled their houses In the occupied territories and Crimea to live elsewhere in Ukraine. “It’s like tearing the arm or leg of a man and then saying:” Let it be like that. “”
Trump promised to end the war quickly, which was triggered by the large -scale invasion of his neighbor’s Russia three years ago. This week, he and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, publicly gave Moscow two large trophies before the peace negotiations begin, saying that Russia could keep at least part of the Ukrainian territory that it has captured And that Ukraine will not join NATO soon soon.
Russia has captured about 20% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which he seized in 2014. If the agreement described by US officials this week takes place, many people who have lost their house during the war will have Little chances, in all likelihood, of the likelihood of return.
In the future, there are in fact two Ukraines: that controlled by kyiv and a Russian satellite beaten in the East, with many Ukrainian families divided between them.
“This chain of declarations of Trump is a chain of humiliation for people like me, people who believed that there was law and justice in the world,” said Anna Murlykina, a 50 -year -old journalist who fled to kyiv de Mariupol in 2022.
“When you live in a world that collapses under your feet,” she said, “the only thing that helps you survive is to believe in the directives, in civilized democratic countries that support values. When countries like the United States stop being pillars, there is nothing to hope for. »»
By explaining the American position, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said that he was “unrealistic” to insist for a return to the old borders of Ukraine. That, he said, “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”
It is difficult to say how many people remain in the occupied territories. By an estimateThere were around six million people lived there last June, including 1.5 million children.
Some villages have been bombed so strongly that they now look like excavation masts. People complain about the lack of sewers, water, electricity and other public services, while schools aim to indoctrinate Ukrainian children with Russian ideology.
A woman from Berdiansk, a sea port captured by Russia in 2022, said the city was slowly recovering, although few original residents have remained. She said that she had not supported the Russian invasion and that, like others who had remained, she was just trying to live her life.
The woman, who spoke under the guise of anonymity because she is afraid of reprisals, said that he had made her angry that some people in Ukraine called those who have remained traitors. “We have not betrayed anyone,” she said. “We live on our own land, with us, and simply try to survive in the circumstances in which we ended up.”
Liubov, 64, who asked that only her first name be used because she fears the Russians, fled Melitopol in eastern Ukraine in 2022, moving to Zaporizhzhia – which is now near the front lines. She said that she was worried about her son, who fights for the Ukrainian army.
“It’s naive, I know, but I really hoped Trump,” said Liubov. “Everyone I knew said he was so unpredictable, maybe it was the man who would stop war.”
Now, like the other Ukrainians in the East, wonders what could be the cost of peace for them.
“I used to fantasize about how I would go home to Melitopol, clean my house of these bastards, because they are living there now,” said Liubov. “I would plant new roses because no one cares about the garden there, and probably many flowers have disappeared.”
For some families, the split is more than geographic.
A 55 -year -old woman, for example, lives in Dnipro, on the side of Ukraine controlled by kyiv, while two sons live on the other side of the front line. Her younger son, 20, is trapped in the family home in a village in Donetsk. She said that she did not speak to her eldest son, who rose to the side of Russia.
He is not alone. For years, President Vladimir V. Putin has masked the idea that Ukraine as a country should not exist, that it belongs to Russia, as was the case during the Soviet Union. And in some parts of eastern Ukraine, especially near the border, some Ukrainians supported the idea of joining Russia.
The government of Ukraine has long said that its objective was to restore its borders where they were before Russia captures Crimea, but in recent months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has moved its public position. He now says that Ukraine may have to temporarily yield land to Russia in a peace agreement, then try to find it later by diplomatic means.
Recent polls show that more Ukrainians, weary of the crushing war, are arranged exchange land for peace that never before; In November, a Gallup survey said more than half Respondents wanted a quick end of war in war.
Under the Biden administration, the United States was the largest fundaler in Ukraine. Trump and his team, however, are skeptical of American participation in the war.
Without the United States in its corner, it is not clear how Ukraine will be able to continue to fight, or which diplomatic avenues are available to withdraw the territory of Russia. If support in the United States stops, Europe and other allies may have to considerably intensify military aid. Already, the country has trouble recruiting new soldiers.
Many Ukrainians in the occupied territories say they are afraid to speak, in particular to family members elsewhere in Ukraine, feared that their phones were monitored. When they speak, like the 20 -year -old man on the Russian side of the front line and his mother in Dnipro, they opt for uncontrolled subjects, such as the forest or the weather.
Russian civilians have already moved into certain occupied areas, attracted by cheap mortgages and abandoned properties. Some brokers actively recruit Russian buyers for a property by the water in places like Mariupol and Crimea.
A woman in Crimea, who spoke anonymously because she feared the remuneration, said in an interview that she and her neighbors had adapted to Russian institutions. She said that she had stayed in Crimea because she wanted to raise her children in her homeland, but there is little hope.
Many people are an emotional hollow because of all uncertainty, she said. “I don’t understand what prospects or my children,” she said. “It’s incredibly discouraging.”
Ms. Matvienko, the woman whose daughter and granddaughter were killed in Mariupol, obtained a reputation in Ukraine after fled this city by returning to a territory controlled by Russian to recover her 10-year grandson, who had was injured in the strike that killed his mother.
His friends say that people have moved to Mariupol Russian republics and tell his horror stories about life there now.
“They can enter any house, throw the owner and take it,” said Malvienko. “They can enter your business, your car.”
“There is an absolute anarchy,” she added, “a person to complain, no one to restore order.”
A friend, with whom she used to discuss frequently on a social channel, has become silent, she said. No one knows where she is.
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn And Dzvinka Pinchuk contributed Kyiv’s reports, and Yurii Shyvala de Lviv, Ukraine.
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