From the Daily Beast / Yahoo!News:
"Furious Frontline Ukrainians Call Out Trump’s Cowardly Retreat From Putin
Air raid sirens blare in Zolochiv, a small town in the Kharkiv region, where dozens of destroyed buildings line the streets that few civilians walk along. The alarms were not the first that day, and they would not be the last.
Zolochiv is just 10 miles away from the nearest front lines but holds no strategic military value. Still, it is pummeled almost daily, and this air alert warned residents to seek cover immediately as a Russian Molniya drone flew over the town...
Residents of Zolochiv told the Daily Beast they are angry at both the U.S. administration and President Donald Trump, who they believe are turning their backs on Ukraine.
Minutes after the alarms lifted, Valentina, 54, stood outside her large white van where her granddaughter, Ulyasha, 10, was scrolling aimlessly on a tablet. She was parked outside one of Zolochiv’s last remaining drug stores, waiting for her husband to return from his shopping.
“Trump himself doesn’t know much about Ukraine. I personally invite him. Let him stay at my house. Let him sit under the drones and under the KAB bombs and then go talk about negotiations,” said Valentina.
Valentina echoes the views of more and more residents in Zolochiv whom I have spoken with during trips to the town over the last 18 months...
There is no data on Trump’s approval rating in Ukraine, but in Zolochiv, the residents are clear: They distrust the U.S. president and believe he is siding with Vladimir Putin...Trump’s remarks over the last six months have been a wave of often-hostile rhetoric that has led many in Ukraine to wonder where the U.S. leader’s loyalties lie...
Back in Zolochiv, at a flower shop near Anatoly’s store, the owner, a woman in her 70s named Zhenya, motioned towards the back room as the air raid alarms began once more. She walked to a thick metal basement door and raised it to show steps leading down to a dark room that served as a bomb shelter.
“For all of this to be happening in the 21st century, a war like this, it’s a catastrophe. When, in the middle of the night, we take our little [grandchildren] and drag them into the cellar because bombs are flying at us,” exclaimed Zhenya.
“We wish Trump would come here and sit in the cellar with our kids. Let him see the truth for himself, not the lies people babble about,” she said. “I don’t even consider them [Russians] human. You can’t even call them beasts.”
Zhenya and her husband, Vasily, 72, have owned their shop for decades and have raised their children and grandchildren in the village.
Before the war, Vasily said that people bought flowers for birthdays and other celebrations, but now, “It’s all for funerals. People forget about birthdays.”
When there are attacks during the day, he said that people run to the shelter at his flower shop. While he is at home at night, he sleeps with his phone on his chest so he can run to his basement. “This is how we live,” said Vasily.
Two days earlier, the husband and wife learned that their granddaughter’s husband, a 44-year-old border guard, was killed in a Russian attack. Vasily said, “It hurts. It hurts the soul. In the 21st century, such a war. It’s a catastrophe.”"
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