Nearly four years have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, but President Donald Trump says they're now reasonably close to ending the war.
Both Andrew Tuzyak and Diyana Gabyak live in Northeast Ohio, but have family that resides in Ukraine.
"My dad there, my sister there," Tuzyak said. A childhood friend of his passed away a few weeks ago, too.
Gabyak recently lost a cousin in the Ukrainian war.
"It's starting to hurt a lot more only because now I see that this is not just kind of like a political conflict. I really do see that it's going after dehumanization basically," Gabyak told me.
Over the last few days, though, the conversation as to what tomorrow may hold for the war has continued.
According to ABC News, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska on Friday.
“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to, there are just a very few that are left,” Trump said. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”
Here are key takeaways from the summit, per ABC News:
- Putin got a red carpet welcome and even rode in Trump’s presidential limousine from the tarmac to the summit venue. There, the pair were joined by two of their top aides: Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff for Trump and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and national security adviser Yuri Ushakov for Putin.
- Putin, who spoke first after the meeting concluded, lauded the historical relationship between the United States, Russia and the former Soviet Union, recalling joint missions conducted by the two countries during World War II.
- Putin said the U.S. and Russia share values, a standard talking point for Russian officials when trying to woo Trump and his aides. Putin also noted that Trump has frequently said the Ukraine war wouldn’t have happened had he won the 2020 election.
ABC News reports that Trump said he and Putin had made some significant progress toward the goal of ending the conflict, but gave no details on what that entailed and had to acknowledge that they had been unable to bridge substantial gaps.
Seventy-two hours later, Trump met with a handful of European leaders as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump, on Monday, said the U.S. would be involved in security assistance for Ukraine. The finer details of what that is were not shared, though.
"We're going to be discussing it today, but we will give them very good protection, very good security," Trump said.
ABC News said the president later confirmed that Putin said Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine.
Trump also walked back his ceasefire demand.
"I don't think you need a ceasefire," he said in the Oval Office, per ABC News. "I know that it might be good to have, but I can also understand strategically, like, well, you know, one country or the other wouldn't want it."
He continued that he likes "the concept of a ceasefire for one reason, because you'd stop killing people immediately."
Gabyak said a ceasefire is still something she wishes would happen immediately.
"I do think that at least stopping the civilian killing ceasefire from all of the Ukraine and kind of continue that political dialogue in the office, you know, but stop the killing. I don't think people deserve it, not only the Ukrainian people, but the world doesn’t deserve it," she told me Monday night.
Gabyak said she prays every day for good news. She feels it on the horizon but wants to see action.
"We really want this war to be over. We really want people of Ukraine to have peace. Not only people of Ukraine, but people of the world because I believe that us as Americans here, it hurts us as much as it hurts them there. I guess in a way you can't say that, but it does affect our life here in the United States," Gabyak said.
She said she is appreciative of Trump's efforts and feels like there's true movement in ending this now.
Trump said he thinks there will be a reasonable chance of ending the war, but only after a trilateral meeting between himself, Zelenskyy, and Putin.
"Mixed feelings to tell you the truth. Unfortunately, I think the the whole world can't trust President Putin anymore only because today he says one thing, tomorrow he does totally opposite," Gabyak said. "We can't trust him based on history. I don't think he has respect for the world."
She fears, as a Russian writer Gabyak quoted has once said before, "[Putin's] regime can fall and that's part of the reason why he doesn't want to stop this war."
There's been no concrete indication thus far of when the war in Ukraine will end.
