Members of New York’s large Ukrainian community expressed a mix of disillusionment, betrayal, defiance and acute uncertainty about what the future holds for Ukraine after tensions escalated this week between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Geopolitical events in the last week have shocked Ukrainians at home and overseas as well as US lawmakers and allies, as the US president appeared to heavily favor the Russian president Vladimir Putin to dictate peace terms on the eve of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, labeling him “a dictator” and falsely claiming Ukraine started the war.
Zelenskyy expressed extreme frustration at being excluded – as were European leaders – as the US and Russia began negotiations to end the war. Zelenskyy accused Trump of living in a Kremlin “disinformation bubble”, while US aides countered by telling Zelenskyy to “tone down” his remarks.
With the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaching on Monday, the unprecedented escalation of tensions between Kyiv and Washington, amid Trump upending decades of US foreign policy by leaning away from Europe and towards Russia, has sparked concerns about future American support for Ukraine.
The city is home to the largest Ukrainian community in the US, with around 150,000 Ukrainian New Yorkers. Over the last three years, the community has been deeply affected by the war 4,000 miles away that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, while millions fled Ukraine in the early stages.
Veselka, a decades-old family-owned Ukrainian restaurant established in 1954 in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood, in an area long known as “Little Ukraine”, has become a beacon of solidarity during the war.
On Thursday, owner Jason Birchard, whose grandfather founded Veselka after fleeing Russian oppression, expressed shock at the reversal in US support for Ukraine.
“It’s very disappointing and discouraging to see our current state and our current affairs with the politics that are playing out right now,” Birchard said, sitting at a table at his restaurant as diners around him munched on pierogis and latkes. “I think it’s important that people know the truth, and it’s unfortunate that Trump has found himself a believer of spreading lies.
“It’s sad that we’ve come to a three-year mark of the conflict with so much loss of life on both sides and no real sense of peace,” he added.
He and his staff, many of whom are Ukrainian, hope for fair terms in any potential ceasefire or peace deal negotiated, he said, and for Ukraine to be brought to the table.
“I always said this shouldn’t be considered a war against Ukraine, it’s a war against democracy,” Birchard said.
Ukrainians “are very resilient and strong, and if they weren’t before, three years into this, now, even more”, he added.
He tries his best, he said, to “keep the hopes and beliefs alive that Ukraine will prevail and regain its democracy under this terrible time”.
On Thursday, next to Veselka, at the Ukrainian National Home – a community center with a Ukrainian restaurant – stood Victor Kurylyk, 53, a board member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr, who has been active in New York’s Ukrainian community since emigrating from western Ukraine 25 years ago.
Kurylyk has found Trump’s latest comments and the current situation “really disturbing”.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Kurylyk said. “But one thing that Ukrainians can assure is that they’re not going to give up.”
“It’s going to be unpredictable, and we hope that European countries, at least, will [continue to] support Ukraine,” he added.
During the 2024 US presidential election, Kurylyk said he observed “fierce debates” within the Ukrainian community, with some Ukrainian Americans voting for Trump.
Now, he said, he knows of several of those voters who are angry and disappointed with Trump after the last week and plan to attend anti-Trump, pro-Ukraine rallies this weekend in Washington DC.
“This is not American values, it’s betrayal,” Kurylyk said. “It’s legitimizing Putin and sitting with a war criminal around the table.”
In the Brighton Beach neighborhood by the ocean in Brooklyn, home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Angela Kravtchenko, a Ukrainian American Democratic party district leader for the area, said Ukrainian American residents there are feeling angry and helpless after this week’s turn of events.
Trump had talked on the campaign trail of being against ongoing massive US spending on Ukraine’s defense, and boasted of creating a peace deal “on day one” of his second term in office, with many fearing such a deal would give Russia an advantage – but nothing quite as aggressively and comprehensively anti-Ukraine and anti-Zelenskyy as the remarks and actions of the last week. After the invasion, Kyiv did not fall and Russia retreated but today occupies around 20% of eastern and south-eastern Ukraine.
“It feels like you’re being crushed from all sides,” Kravtchenko said.
She was “very disappointed” but not surprised by Trump’s comments about Ukraine and its president.
“Ukraine did not start the war,” she asserted, and described Trump as “Putin’s mouthpiece” who is promoting the “Kremlin narrative”.
Despite Trump’s position, Kravtchenko said she remains committed to fighting for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory and will continue working to keep the hope for Ukraine alive.
She tells her concerned constituents, not to get upset, but rather: “get organized, let’s brainstorm, what can we do? What can we message and get out there?”
“Ukraine will survive,” she said.
This weekend and next week, protests are planned in New York and other cities, to mark the war’s third anniversary.
One of the rallies on Monday is organized by Svitanok NYC, a New York-based organization that advocates for Ukraine’s sovereignty and combats disinformation.
Its president, 21-year-old Oleksandr Taran, described Trump’s comments and the increasing tensions as “very concerning”.
“The majority of Ukrainians have been in panic since hearing all of these things, because the US is our primary partner in this war,” said Taran, who moved to New York from Kyiv eight years ago.
“I think it’s important for the new leadership and for President Trump to do a proper assessment of the situation and set the facts straight,” he said.
Taran, like others, emphasized that he wanted the war to end, but on “fair terms”.
In response to Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy, Taran said that like other democratic countries, there are internal political disputes within Ukraine, but “when somebody attacks a Ukrainian from outside, we stand together, and we unite for that Ukrainian”.
“President Zelenskyy is a democratically-elected leader of the country at war and regardless of our own domestic political issues, he represents our country, and he fights for the interests of Ukraine and we will stand by him,” he said.
The outcome of the war, Taran said, has implications for the global world order.
“We fight for democratic ideals, that have to be upheld in the world,” he said. “And when somebody breaches that, when somebody invades another country, it has implications on not just Ukraine, it has global implications.”
“We are worried, but we’re also standing strong and very confident in our strength and are determined to work together towards making sure that the Ukraine and American relations strengthen” he said.
This week, Razom for Ukraine, a New York-based non-profit providing humanitarian aid and assistance to Ukraine, encouraged people to contact their US representatives to call on them to publicly disavow Trump’s comments.
Dora Chomiak, the CEO of Razom, said: “It’s painful to see information that is so inaccurate amplified in that way and by people who ought to know better and see facts as facts.”
Chomiak, born in the US to Ukrainian parents, emphasized that “Ukraine is a democracy and has had peaceful transitions of power” and that Ukrainians have fought for democracy for generations.
She said providing assistance to Ukraine has become “almost a coping mechanism” for many during these times.
Chomiak recently visited Ukraine and noted a range of emotions within the community there, ranging from concern to optimism, she said, as well as a growing disillusionment with the US. For many younger Ukrainians, she said, who have grown up in a sovereign Ukraine rather than under the Soviet Union, “there’s a kind of thing now of, like, it’s up to us, no one’s gonna swoop in and save us”.
“And certainly in the past three years since the full scale invasion, it’s been, not only is it up to us, we’re doing it for the whole rest of the world,” she added.
Chomiak said no matter what, she and her organization are committed to ensuring that Ukraine “remains a sovereign, secure democracy”.
