An endless expectation for families

Kateryna Haluchka, a 28 -year -old young Ukrainian, patients every day in the hope of receiving news from her boyfriend, who left on the front line.Image: AFp

While the war in Ukraine continues to get bogged down, the position of the United States towards Moscow concerns the families of Ukrainian soldiers.

Barbara WOJAZER, kiev, Ukraine / afp

In recent times, Kateryna Halouchka sometimes finds herself sitting alone, his eyes riveted on his phone, watching for a sign of life of his boyfriend, soldier on the forehead.

It has been three years since the romantic life of this 28 -year -old woman was turned upside down by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Like thousands of others, she is suspended from rare messages, telephone and brief reunion with her companion.

“I have a new social role,” says Kateryna on the bench of a kyiv park:

Like her companion, she was a time on the front, but as a volunteer ambulance, in addition to the two jobs that she combines.

Then a serious injury forced him to stay in the Ukrainian capital for a while, still intensifying the anxiety of waiting. “We sit there, hoping for a call, hoping for a message,” she said.

An unbearable state of waiting

Kateryna is already mourning a boyfriend who has disappeared in the fighting and the pain resurfaces whenever her current companion does not respond for a day or two.

“Your brain never finds anything positive. He does not imagine that your spouse has descended Putin or that the war is over, ”slips the young redhead with a contained smile.

Having little confidence in Donald Trump’s promise to reach to restore peace, it finds itself stuck in what it defines as a “very stressful” permanent waiting state.

“We live constantly with the idea that he can die and that we will never see his body again,” she adds.

Donald Trump’s promises are struggling to convince

Because the American president has grown many times to be able to end the war in 24 hours and put pressure in favor of a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia which, in theory, would offer Ukrainian soldiers the opportunity to return home.

But Vladimir Putin rejected the United States call last month in favor of a total and unconditional ceasefire and nothing indicates today that Moscow and kyiv are about to conclude an agreement.

Fragmented families

Daria Yédamova, whose husband, Artour, fights in the Kharkiv region, in northeast Ukraine, is also pessimistic. Rail in the middle of her freshly repainted cuisine, the young woman expresses her hopes with pain:

Despite the future prospects that darkened, Daria Yédamova keeps hope for the future of her family.Image: AFP

Encouraged by Artour during video conversations, she renovates their new apartment bought in kyiv, cutting walls while taking care of their two young children.

But with the end of the fighting that is long overdue, the separation damages the family cell.

The rare times that their 11 -month -old daughter, Lina, meets her father, she does not always recognize him, Artour having engaged only a few months after her birth. Taras, three years old, constantly claims his father.

“He asks” Dad will come back “,” We’re going to sleep together “or” We’re going to read together “,” says Daria.

Despite the war, rare moments of happiness

If sometimes the families of soldiers travel across the country for short meetings, this time, the boyfriend of Kateryna Halouchka received a rare authorization to go to kyiv as permission.

She is impatient to be able to honor a small tradition they follow when they see each other: share chicken kung pao in a Chinese restaurant in the capital, then enter a cake covered with pink frosting in hand.

Kateryna is part of the growing number of Ukrainians worried about the rapprochement between Washington and Moscow and, with the future that darkens, she clings to these fleeting moments of happiness.

In March, 73% of Ukrainians estimated that the election of Donald Trump had been bad for their country, against 21% in December 2024, according to the kyiv Sociology Institute. The American president put pressure on kyiv while refusing to offer guarantees of security and vital armaments for Ukraine, once provided by his predecessor Joe Biden.

Faced with this administration, Kateryna feels “anger and hatred” to the idea that Ukraine must “communicate with stupid people”.

The tenant of the White House and his acolyte, Elon Musk, probably “never opened a book of history of their lives”, gets the young woman to. She concludes: