'There can be no deal for Ukraine without Ukraine'

As world leaders grandstand with their own agendas on the war in Ukraine, it can become easy to forget the impact it has on everyday people

Journalist and communications specialist Liudmyla Bortok who fled Russia's war on Ukraine and is now living in Cork. Picture: Chani Anderson

“We were all kind of holding our breath,” Ukrainian Liudmyla Bortok said from her new home in Cork following the US-Russia talks about a ‘peace deal’ for her country this week. 

But she was happy “at least” that nothing substantive emerged from the talks between US and Russian officials who met around a partially gilded table in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Ms Bortok, a journalist and communications professional in Ukraine, fled her country the morning bombs began exploding around her home in Kiev and has been living in Cork since. She said: 

With what’s happening at the moment, Ukrainians are very anxious. I hope the US will still remember our partnership and friendship and will not give up Ukraine to a predator.

“Thousands of people have been killed. Thousands lost their homes, lost their hopes, and imposing conditions which are not suitable for the country which has been literally bleeding for years now — it’s not just unfair it is ridiculous. 

"They did not invite Ukraine to this peace conversation, they did not invite you, Europe, which is the key player in the continent. And it’s our future and our land. There can be no deal for Ukraine without Ukraine.”

US actions this week have posed serious questions for European security. The US fulcrum in geopolitics was suddenly shattered when US president Trump and his administration appeared to shun the West and forge a new axis instead with Russia.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting Donald Trump in New York in September last year ahead of Mr Trump's election for a second term. However, Ukraine was notably absent from the US talks with Russia this week. Picture: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

The usual US narratives of freedom and democratic values were replaced with bombastic talk and outright lies — with Trump calling Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator and blaming Ukraine for starting the war (when the world clearly witnessed Russian artillery and tanks first invading its neighbour’s sovereign soil).

Such bizarre accusations from Trump perfectly parrot Kremlin disinformation about the war.

Whether this week’s rhetoric merely reflects Trump’s bizarre admiration for the ‘hard man’ Russian autocrat or a bid to appeal to the anti-woke America First Maga crowd or a more sophisticated geopolitical manoeuvre to crack a long-feared alliance between China and Russia, it is sobering for all Western democracies.

US hegemony is seemingly intent on self-destruction, leaving behind a fractured multipolar world.

Liudmyla Bortok in Cork. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

But the wringing of hands, confusion and disbelief for many, and the well-founded fears of the loss of soft power the US has spent almost 80 years cultivating globally must be nothing compared to what Ukraine is feeling now.

And the sudden switch in US rhetoric comes at a time when Ukraine and its troops are tiring after a bloody and draining three year war — the deadliest conflict Europe has seen since the Second World War.

“I just hope that Americans realise we have lives just like they do,” Ms Bortok said.

We just want to live without being in constant danger of being taken by an aggressor who has killed already tens of thousands of our people and destroyed the lives of millions.

“The US was a partner that we would look up to for security and assistance because Ukraine had clearly made the choice to become a democratic country.

“We share Western values and we are part of the family.

“And families rely on other family members. Or that’s what we thought.”

The US had been Ukraine’s biggest financial, military, and political backer in the war until now.

Despite tensions this week between Trump and Zelensky, Ukraine and the US held talks on Thursday, with AFP reporting that an agreement to give the US preferential access to Ukraine’s minerals and resources — but in exchange for security guarantees — was possible according to sources.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi security advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad Al-Aiban, US national security advisor Mike Waltz, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and Vladimir Putin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday. Picture: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AP

Ukrainians are now looking to the EU and European nations to help. But they are concerned about the lack of European unity, Ms Bortok said.

“An ex-colleague of mine, she wrote recently that the ‘US is retreating, EU is sleeping and Ukraine is bleeding’. I think that describes it well,” she said.

“And we remember 2014 when Ukraine was first invaded and Crimea were annexed. 

"There was no unity among the world leaders. And 10 years later, Putin does it again. But now with more land and more casualties. There is more danger. We’re talking about security in the whole region. We’re talking about nuclear weapon usage.

“If no one learns from this lesson, if aggressors are not put in the right place, if there are no consequences for criminals, there will be a price. You might see Russian tanks pulling in front of your window like I did.

“That’s the reality. It should be taken very seriously.”

While in the Donetsk region in 2014, a tank flying a Russian flag pulled up outside Mr Bortok’s former home.

Ukraine was notably absent when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, above, met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov at Diriyah Palace, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Picture: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AP

She fled to Kyiv, where she built a new life for herself, before this most recent Russian invasion forced her to flee again.

“Now every family has lost someone. Everyone’s life has had to take a different course because of Russia,” she said.

“We cannot just get accept it. What would Europe be now unless countries stood up against Hitler? Trump said: ‘This war should never have been started.’ But we didn’t start this war. We didn’t have a choice. I woke up to bombs falling on my city. I want to believe in America as I did before.

“But to say ‘you have to accept this deal we made without you’, I don’t think that will work. I hope Ukraine will not become a ‘Riveira’ with all our minerals taken. And with no security guarantees.”

A Ukrainian woman passes a burning building following shelling in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk, in March 2023. Despite Donald Trump's claim that Ukraine started the war, the world has witnessed the Russian invasion. Picture: Sergey Shestak/AFP/Getty

Other nations in the region now also “feel the breath of Russia” on their backs she said.

Gun sales boomed in Lithuania, which borders Kaliningrad, an exclave cut off from mainland Russia which was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1945 under the Potsdam agreement after more than 20m Russians were killed in the Second World War and its army was instrumental in defeating Hitler and his deadly fascism.

It also borders Belarus, widely regarded as a Russian proxy state.

By March 2022, gun sales increased by up to eight times in Lithuania, with applications for gun licenses doubling, Euronews reported at the time.

A complicated history

Photographer Pawel Nowak, who has lived in Cork and Kerry for 17 years but who is originally from Poland, said that there has been a recent drive to learn defence skills and first aid in his country of birth due to the war in Ukraine.

His parents live in the western part of Poland and being far from the eastern border feel “a bit of uncertainty but not panic”.

“But there is some tension in the Polish nation now,” he said.

“We’ve been invaded by Russia before and that was horrific for our country. I think that’s still lingering in the back of people’s minds. But I don’t really hear about people moving their loved ones from Poland at the moment.

“It’s not at that stage where I would be thinking about bringing my parents over to Ireland.”

Pawel Nowak. 

Poland has strict laws on private gun ownership and he has not heard of any increases in applications for gun licences or boosts to gun sales since the invasion.

“But I heard about an effort to give people some training in self-defense and survival in extreme situations and some first aid.

“And I think the Polish army has been trying to mobilise people that used to be in the army to come back for extra training, pulling the reserve soldiers and getting them retrained in case of any attack.”

People in Poland are talking about Trump’s apparent retreat from the EU and march towards Russia with trepidation. Mr Nowak said: 

My father commented on Trump turning his back on Europe, on the European Union, and on Ukraine.

“He [Trump] was actually almost blaming Ukraine for starting the war, which isn’t true. That is definitely worrying. He’s also spoken about blocking Ukraine from joining Nato.

“And there are rumours about him basically pulling US troops out of Poland, which would be very concerning because Poland by itself wouldn’t be able to protect itself from Russia.”

Pulling US troops from Poland would be a security concern for the whole of Europe because Poland “is a bit of a shield”, he said, adding:  

I think Poland is counting on help from Nato countries and other countries in Europe to step in if something happens.

“The whole thing is a bit confusing at the moment, what Trump is trying to say and his position in the whole conflict is unclear.”

Tensions have already escalated acutely along Poland’s border with Belarus, he said, adding: “There are rumours that Belarus and Russia are working together to disrupt the peace around that space.

“Along the eastern Polish border, they’re helping illegal migrants get to the Polish border which resulted in a lot of tensions.”

The European Commission has accused Belarus of luring migrants to Minsk with the false promise of easy entry to the EU.

A Ukrainian refugee carries bedding at a refugee centre in Nadarzyn near Warsaw in March 2022. Pawel Nowak says there have been tensions in Poland due to the arrival of 1m refugees from the war — but also about accusations that Belarus deliberately funneled migrants to its Polish border to create a crisis. Picture: Czarek Sokolowski/AP

Belarus rejected such accusations but the Russian ally had opened travel agencies in the Middle East offering a new unofficial route into Europe.

The EU alleged that this was designed to create a crisis.

A Polish soldier died last June after he was stabbed by a migrant trying to cross the border there.

Mr Nowak said: “After that incident, Poland actually pushed legislation that in extreme situations the military that is protecting the border can use live rounds against these people. So it is getting quite serious.”

Tensions are also escalating within Poland about Ukrainian refugees, he said.

“When I scroll through Facebook now, I see comments about [the almost 1m] Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

“The Polish job market is not great, and it wasn’t great before the war. So there’s a little bit of tension between Polish people and Ukrainian people at the moment. And I think the support that Ukraine was getting in the early stages of the war is dwindling a little bit because there is a bit of competition for jobs and houses and all that.

“And the people that left Ukraine and went to Poland to seek shelter and seek asylum, they are not really supported financially in Poland like they would be in Ireland. So they need to start working almost straight away.”

And emerging tensions over work and resources are layered on top of a complex and sometimes bitter history between the two nations.

Some 100,000 Poles, many children and women, were massacred by the nationalist and Nazi-collaborating Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UAP) in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1945.

“The Polish-Ukrainian history from the Second World War is not the cleanest one, which adds a bit of oil to the fire,” Mr Nowak said.

“UAP soldiers basically ethnically cleansed the area. But the Polish nation really stood up and helped Ukrainian people fleeing the war. They were able to look past what happened in 1943 to 1945. So I think there is a change in people’s perceptions of the Ukrainian nation now.”

Closer ties

Heli Sivunen, a Finnish TV journalist based in Helsinki, said that Finnish people have not felt forced to take drastic measures regarding self-defence since the war in Ukraine or the major shift in tone of geopolitics this week.

Heli Sivunen.

The country is used to having Russia as a neighbour and already has conscription, with all males required to serve at least six months military service and with military service voluntary for women.

“I don’t think Finnish people have been terrified. People have not started arming themselves because of the war in Ukraine,” she said.

“I grew up during the Cold War here and we’ve always been used to having Russia as a neighbour.”

But the war in Ukraine did push Finland to join Nato in April 2023, she said, adding: 

That’s been the biggest impact, the support for joining Nato increased massively.

“It had been a much more controversial issue before the war in Ukraine. But the support was then overwhelming and Finland very quickly became a member of Nato. 

"Joining Nato was, I think, a relief for a lot of people.”

French soldiers training with a 155mm, 52-calibre self-propelled howitzer during a Nato exercise near Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland in December. Heli Sivunen says Russia's attack on Ukraine propelled Finland to join Nato. Picture: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty 

But the war has also led to closer ties between Finland and Ukraine.

“Finland has been a massive supporter of Ukraine since the war,” Ms Sivunen said. 

“People have become much more aware of Ukraine and got to know Ukrainian people arriving here and helped them a lot. Now, you see Ukrainian flags flying in certain places here.”