Demonstrators holding a giant Ukrainian flag in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15, 2025. (Credit: AFP)
Pavlo Nebroev stayed up until late at night in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, awaiting the outcome of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which he ultimately judged to have ‘achieved nothing.’
The American and Russian presidents parted ways on Friday in Alaska without saying anything about a possible peace plan for Ukraine, while making numerous engaging statements and friendly gestures. ‘The results are what I expected. I think it’s a nice diplomatic victory for Putin,’ Pavlo Nebroev, 38, head of a theater in Kharkiv, told AFP.
This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had described the summit as a “personal victory” for Vladimir Putin, who had been largely isolated from the Western world since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. “This meeting achieved nothing. The problems concerning Ukraine must be resolved with Ukraine, with the participation of Ukrainians and their president,” insisted Pavlo Nebroev.
Pessimistic, Laryssa Melny, a pharmacist in Kyiv, believes there will be “no peace” anytime soon, and that the conflict may at best be frozen for a while before resuming.
On Saturday morning, the U.S. president informed Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders of the outcome of his meeting with Vladimir Putin. Zelensky then announced that he would travel to Washington on Monday to discuss with his American counterpart ways to put an end to “the killings and the war.”
‘Let’s keep living’
In Kharkiv, a city regularly bombed, Olia Donik, 36, was walking in a sunny park on Saturday, like millions of Ukrainians trying to maintain a normal life despite the war continuing for nearly three and a half years. She said she was “neither disappointed nor surprised” by the outcome of the Trump-Putin meeting. “It was interesting to see how it would end. And it ended with nothing,” she observed. “Let’s keep living our lives, here, in Ukraine.”
Ukraine and European countries fear above all that this summit could allow Vladimir Putin to manipulate his American counterpart and redraw the country’s borders without Kyiv’s participation. While the summit was taking place in Alaska, the Russian army launched 85 drones and a missile on Ukraine during the night from Friday to Saturday, according to Kyiv.
Since 2022, the country has faced almost daily deadly Russian attacks, which have claimed hundreds of civilian lives. “Whether there are negotiations or not, Kharkiv is bombed almost every day. Kharkiv doesn’t feel any change,” said Iryna Derkach, a 50-year-old photographer interviewed by AFP.
Trump is ‘not for Ukraine’
That day, Iryna Derkach had just observed the daily minute of silence held every morning across the country to honor the tens of thousands of victims of the Russian invasion. “We believe in victory, we know it will come, but only God knows who exactly will bring it,” Derkach said. “We don’t lose hope, we donate, we help as much as we can. We do our work and don’t pay too much attention to what Trump does.”
In Kyiv, the capital, Katerina Foutchenko, 30, believes that Donald Trump is not really “for Ukraine.” “He wants to show the world that he’s supposedly for Ukraine, and then he runs to see Putin and becomes buddies with him,” said the Ukrainian woman. She also judged the Alaska meeting “empty” and useless for Ukraine.
Volodymyr Ianovytch, a 72-year-old retiree, offered only one solution after the Trump-Putin summit: “We must make missiles and send them to Russia.”
Humanitarian convoy reaches Rmeish, Ain Ibl, Dibil despite obstacles
