It is already clear that tomorrow night will have Ukrainians glued to their social networks and television screens. Although the whole world will be looking towards remote Alaska, it is primarily they who are asking themselves the insistent question - will they decide about us without us?

Ahead of the expected summit between US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, there are significantly more questions hanging in the air.

Will Trump and Putin agree to freeze the front? Or an air or sea ceasefire? Or will they pressure Kiev into exchanging territory? Or holding elections? Will the Ukrainian president also appear in Alaska? And what if Trump and Putin don't agree on anything? What will that actually mean?

Aktuality.sk asked those most affected by the war about their expectations and concerns about tomorrow's meeting - people who live in frontline towns, those who had to leave them, and those who defend them.

Truce? Time to relax

"I don't expect anything productive. Putin is stalling for time and it seems to me that he is once again trying to wrap the smug Trump around his thumb," says Kramatorsk journalist Dmytro Hlushko.

The war is not something far away for him – the front is currently located 17 kilometers from his city. Kramatorsk was the target of Russia's hybrid war against Ukraine back in 2014, when the city was occupied for several months by the so-called separatists. After the Ukrainian army pushed them out of Kramatorsk, the city, which had a pre-war population of 150,000, experienced a boom. However, since 2022, it has been the target of Russian missile attacks and now there is a threat that the Russians will fight their way to its gates. For the central city of the region, this would be a disaster. It would face the fate of nearby Bakhmut or Toretsk, which the fighting has turned into ruins.

"When we look at the negotiating positions, Ukraine is in a totally bad and weak position today. It is not only the fault of the allies, but also of Ukraine itself, which has messed up everything that could be messed up," Hluško also addresses criticism to his own ranks."Nobody prepared for anything, we are watching the breakthroughs of the front. There are many holes in the defense, few people at the front. Forced mobilization has destroyed the motivation to go defend the country," he adds.

At the same time, however, he strongly points out that he rejects"rumors" that Ukraine should give up, for example, the Donetsk region in exchange for the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions - there have been speculations that Vladimir Putin has made such a condition for agreeing to a ceasefire.

"People, what if we exchanged Kiev for all the occupied territories? What is this talk about exchanges? Does it mean that people died for nothing? And what about us, the people who live here? It's as if they've already thrown us overboard. I don't think the summit will change anything. Maybe a ceasefire will come out of it. That's the maximum. But I have no illusions. Russia will not respect it. A ceasefire will only mean that the warring parties will get time to rest," thinks Hlushko.

According to the journalist, the Russian army will not stop until it encounters a hard barrier from the Ukrainian one."Our army would have to do something similar to what was achieved (in 2022) during the Kharkiv operation. But considering how many troops the Russians now have concentrated in the occupied territories, this is completely unrealistic," he recalled the inexorable fact.

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Rules broken

Journalist Anna Murlykina was forced to leave the Donetsk region in February 2022. More precisely, she had to flee her native Mariupol before the fighting. Today, she lives in Kiev, like thousands of other displaced people from the region, where the war has wiped dozens of villages and towns off the face of the earth in three years.

"When I read or watch the news in recent days, I ask myself: what are students of diplomatic schools around the world learning now? What terminology are they learning? The leadership of a country that is a world leader is getting bogged down in elementary concepts and ignoring international law as such," the journalist does not hide her astonishment.

When Donald Trump talks about a territorial exchange between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, he seems to forget that, according to international law, a territorial exchange is only possible when one country cedes part of its territory and the other country does the same for economic or geographical advantages.

"Without war, murder, coercion. Without any violence. In our case, the president of the most powerful country in the world is forcing Ukraine to exchange part of its territories for other territories, temporarily occupied, but its own. And he calls it a 'territorial exchange'. Between whom and whom? It's not Putin who is breaking the rules. The US is breaking the rules," Murlykin comments.

What does the native of Mariupol expect from the meeting between Trump and Putin? As she noted - that the strong will once again strike the weak.

"It is easy and safe to hit the weaker. And to push the bigger and stronger is scary. That is why I do not expect anything good from the meeting in Alaska. The strong will use the right of the strong to jointly humiliate the weaker. But this will not stop the war. Neither in Ukraine nor in the world. It will only accelerate it. I am afraid that soon there will be no safe place left in the world where a person could hide from war. In a world of destroyed rules, it will be dangerous everywhere," the journalist warns.

A box is burned from the house

Speech therapist Nadiya Hordiyuk also lost her home – her native New York. It was she who helped return the city in the Donetsk region to its unusual, but historical name a few years ago. The former Novhorodske could then boast a sign at the entrance to the city, where soldiers, journalists and travelers who had wandered into this corner of the Donetsk region took photos.

From the end of the 18th century until World War II, German settlers also inhabited the area. In New York, they built steam-powered mills, factories for the production of agricultural machinery, built workshops, and grew orchards. However, what the locals wanted to show tourists turned into ashes. The city was completely destroyed by the fighting.

"February 2022 forced me to leave my home, first I was sheltered by a family in the Lviv region. Since the summer of 2022 I have been living in Bulgaria because my daughter found cheaper housing here than in Ukraine. At sixty-two, it is very difficult to start from scratch, but I am trying to hold on. I work remotely with children with special needs," says Hordijukova.

"My house is a box destroyed by fire, with burnt holes instead of windows," he sadly states.

He has a clear opinion on the upcoming negotiations in Alaska - in the civilized world, negotiations are not held with criminals, and the Russian president is one by the definition of the international community.

"By organizing these negotiations, Trump is actually legalizing a terrorist and a criminal who is involved in the genocide of the people of Ukraine and especially the Donetsk region, because many of my compatriots died during the Russian occupation of the city. All residents lost their homes, property and health. The neighboring city of Torek disappeared from the face of the earth, not a single building was preserved, in New York children, including my students, died and suffered severe amputations," the teacher describes, recalling how Moscow used words about protecting the"people of Donbass."

Meanwhile, those on his Ukrainian side are making the greatest sacrifice in the war.

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Native Russian peace

The news of the negotiations in remote Alaska understandably reached the Ukrainian trenches.

Oleksandr, a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who is currently fighting on the Donetsk sector of the front, notes that he and his colleagues in the unit are rather skeptical about them.

"Russia explains peace negotiations in a very peculiar way. The practice of the Minsk talks has already shown this. Before such negotiations, they only strengthen attacks and send everything they have to the front. And this is also happening here, where I am now, in Donbas. I have been to Vovchansk (a city in the Kharkiv region), to Orichiva (a city in the Zaporizhia region), to small towns in Donbas - so visually we can see very well how much the Russians desire peace," he commented.

When asked how he views media reports that Ukraine could exchange, for example, the Donetsk region for other Ukrainian territory, he responded bluntly, indicating that it would not happen just like that."We have made too much effort and shed too much blood...," Oleksandr noted.

He also pointed out that the Russian military could use this territory as a springboard for future operations.

"I don't know what would prevent another Russian attack once they get there. What's important is that we can't abandon the people who live here," the Ukrainian soldier adds.