Panic in Eastern Ukraine as Trump Considers Land Deal With Russia

In Sloviansk, a small city near Ukraine’s eastern frontlines, life continues under the constant threat of shelling.

According to CNN report, a different kind of fear has spread the possibility that the United States might agree to hand parts of eastern Ukraine to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire.

The idea surfaced during talks between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian officials ahead of the Alaska summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

If such a deal happened, Sloviansk could end up under Moscow’s control.

For locals like Mykhailo, a journalist who spends rare quiet moments at the city’s salt lake, the proposal feels surreal.

“I feel like I just float away from this reality,” he said, glancing toward the concrete bomb shelter by the beach.

“Many of my friends want to stay here, but we’d all have to leave. Still, I don’t think it will happen.”

Others show less faith in diplomacy. Ludmila, who lost mobility after stepping on a land nine two years ago, dismissed the talks as theatre.

“They decide one thing, say another, and do another,” she said.

The mood is tense across Donetsk region. Residents have already dug new defensive trenches west of Sloviansk to prepare for another Russian push.

Few, however, imagined their strongest ally might consider giving away their homes.

In Sloviansk’s only functioning maternity ward, new mother Taisiya cradled her daughter, born just days earlier. “That would be very bad,” she said of the potential deal.

“But we have no influence. People will just give away our homes.”

The war’s reach remains relentless. Natalia and Sviatoslav lost their daughter Sofia, her husband Mykyta, and their grandson Lev in a Russian airstrike in Kyiv on July 31.

The young family had moved away from Sloviansk to escape daily drone and missile attacks, only for the war to find them anyway.

Sofia had been three months pregnant and planned to visit Sloviansk soon to share the news.

“They left from the war, and the war caught them there,” Sviatoslav said quietly.

In nearby Kramatorsk, trains from Kyiv arrive to the sound of air raid sirens. Families reunite briefly before soldiers return to the front.

Tetyana, greeting her husband Serhiy for his birthday, wept openly.

“I don’t care about those territories,” she said. “I just want him to come home alive.”

For many here, Trump’s diplomacy feels distant and irrelevant.

Survival  not politics  defines their days.

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