‘If someone took Trump’s land, how would he feel?’ – Ukrainians view peace talks with suspicion

A Ukrainian farmer-turned-soldier in the Donbas has a message for Donald Trump as the US president attempts to broker a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow.

Anatolii, 59, said: “If someone took a piece of his territory, what would he say to that? The same goes for us.”

Like many Ukrainians, the serviceman volunteered to join a territorial defence unit when Russia launched its full-scale war almost four years ago.

He has been fighting ever since, but will have the option to quit next year once he turns 60.

Unable to wear body armour anymore because of its weight, Anatolii now operates further back from the frontline in a small workshop on the outskirts of the city of Kramatorsk where he helps to fix and improve the performance of drones – a crucial weapon on the battlefield.

“I want this war to finally end,” he said. “I want to go home, to my family, to my land.”

But not at any price.

He and other soldiers in 107 Brigade of Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Force view Mr Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace agreement with suspicion.

An initial proposal envisaged the Ukrainian government giving up Donetsk and Luhansk, the two regions that make up the Donbas, to Russia.

This includes large swathes of land that are still under Ukraine’s control, and that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives fighting to defend.

“I feel negative about it,” Anatolii said, referring to the proposal.

“So many people already fell for this land … How can we give away our land? It would be like someone comes to my house and says: ‘Give me a piece of your home.'”

However, he added: “I understand, we have nothing to take it back with. Maybe through some political means…

“I do not want more people to fall, more people to die. I want politicians to somehow come to terms.”

A short drive away from the workshop is a hidden bomb factory where other soldiers from the same unit are focused on a different kind of war effort.

Surrounded by 3D printed gadgets, metal ball bearings and plastic explosives, they make improvised bombs, including anti-personnel mines and devices that can be fitted onto one-way attack drones and exploded onto targets.

Vadym, 41, is in charge of the production line.

He has been fighting since Russian President Vladimir Putin first attacked eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Asked whether he felt tired, he said: “We are always tired, we have no motivation as such, but there is the understanding that the enemy will keep coming as long as we do not stop him. If we stop fighting, our children and grandchildren will fight. That keeps us going.”

Vadym is also against simply handing over Ukrainian land to Russia.

“If we now give away borders, give away Donbas, then what?” he said.

“Any country can come to any other country and say: This is our land. Let’s coordinate, do business, and keep living as before. That is not normal in my view.”

The city of Kramatorsk stands testament to Ukraine’s will to fight, remaining firmly in Ukrainian hands, though Russia’s war is inching closer.

Nets stretched like a tunnel line a main road leading into the city to protect vehicles from the threat of small, killer drones.

Coils of barbed wire are also strung across fields around the outskirts of Kramatorsk along with other fortifications such as mounds of dirt and triangular lumps of concrete.

Many civilians have remained here as well as the nearby city of Slovyansk, even as other landmark sites such as Mariupol, Bakhmut and Avdiivka have fallen.

Yet the toll of living in a warzone is clear.

Stallholders swept away rubble and broken glass on Sunday after a Russian missile smashed into a central market in Kramatorsk on Saturday night.

Some, like Ella, 60, even chose to reopen despite the carnage.

“It’s frightening. We need to earn a living. I have my mother, I need to look after her, help my children. So we do what we have to do,” she said.

Her adult children live in Kyiv and want her to leave, but Kramatorsk is her home.

“We’ve been living like this for four years now. We’re so used to it. A drone flies overhead and we keep working,” she said.

Asked how she felt about what the war had done to her city, Ella’s voice wobbled and she wiped tears from her eyes.

“We keep it all inside, but it still hurts. It’s frightening and painful. I just want things as they used to be. We don’t want anything here to change,” she said.

As for what she would do if a future peace deal forced Ukraine to surrender the area, Ella said: “That’s a hard question … I wouldn’t stay. I’d leave.”

Production by security and defence producer Katy Scholes, Ukraine producer Azad Safarov, camera operator Mostyn Pryce