Recently, many stoic residents of Odesa, once a symbol of resilience, have started re-evaluating their options. Some are selling homes passed down through generations and relocating themselves and their families to safer spots in Western Europe.
Though departures are hard to quantify, the stack of unpaid utility bills in my building’s lobby and the darkened windows in high-rises, increasingly targeted by Russian drones, tell the story.
It’s not the number leaving but who’s leaving: the movers and shakers who once fueled Odesa’s vibrant energy. Unlike those from safer regions of western Ukraine who fled at the first sign of trouble, the city’s elite held on as long as they could. I am beginning to feel their absence deeply.
If Ukrainians had hoped for a long-awaited calm after Tuesday’s high-level talks in Riyadh—the first between Washington and Moscow since 2021—those hopes were swiftly shattered as Russian drones struck Kyiv, Odesa, and beyond. A day later, immediately following Trump’s derogatory remarks about Zelensky on Wednesday, Odesa was pounded for more than an hour with drones, wounding civilians while damaging residential buildings and critical infrastructure. Perhaps the U.S. simply forgot to tell Russia to hold its fire.
There’s a palpable sense that Donald Trump is undermining Ukraine, deepening the gloom. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was shut out of the talks, while a heavily sanctioned Russia gained the geopolitical optics it craved. Without a single concession from Moscow, the U.S. accepted Russia’s proposal to lift restrictions on its diplomatic properties. “Restoring functionality to their respective missions is crucial to progress,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after four and a half hours of talks.
“We are not at the table, and we could end up on the menu” is how Maria put it Tuesday evening in Kyiv as she sought shelter from drone attacks just hours after the Saudi talks wrapped up. It is a measure of how worried Ukrainians are now that she and others spoke on the condition that their surnames not be used.
“The population in general doesn’t trust the [Ukrainian] government. Its distrust of the enemy is 10 times that,” Maria explained. “And now we have to cope with distrust and misunderstanding of the new powers in Washington.” And she has cause: Trump last week seemed to blame Ukraine for Russia’s invasion. “You should have never started it,” Trump said in a press conference. “You could have made a deal.”
Trump, on Truth Social, even managed to claim that the U.S. was the victim of a Ukrainian con job. “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. ”
Trump’s tone was enough to embolden Russia’s chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to start dictating terms—beginning with a rejection of NATO troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers. What comes next is predictable: Russia will likely demand the unfreezing of $300 billion in sovereign assets, the lifting of Western sanctions, and the withdrawal of NATO troops from frontline states. That’s in addition to its other demands to end what Putin calls a “special military operation”—freezing current battle lines, forcing Kyiv to drop its NATO bid, and recognizing Crimea as Russian territory.
“We are not at the table, and we could end up on the menu.”
My Ukrainian friends and contacts are struggling to make sense of it all—I don’t envy them. Those who have left now wonder whether they’ll need a Russian passport to visit their homes in eastern Ukraine, as Moscow pushes for control over the remaining parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts.
The rapid pace of events seemed to catch the embattled Zelensky off guard. His earlier attempt to appease Trump with a “peace through strength” offer of rare earths and critical minerals backfired. Now the Trump administration is reportedly demanding half a trillion dollars in Ukrainian rare-earth minerals as secured funds for the U.S. aid given to Ukraine.
Sophia, who’s temporarily resettled in Scotland and hails from Zaporizhzhia, asked, “If we give away territory, what will our country look like, if I decide to come back and help rebuild my country? Where will we go if the land we currently live on is given to Russia?”
Not surprisingly, many express bitterness over what looks like betrayal. “It feels like the Americans are capitulating on us,” said Olha in Odesa. “They want our minerals, but hadn’t we already given away our nuclear weapons as part of the Budapest Memorandum in the 1990s? Haven’t we paid enough? But I am not surprised. That’s what the Americans do and have done in the past. I am no longer upset. We have no choice but to make things work.”
The mass exodus, especially early in the war, has left deep demographic scars that may never heal. One Kyiv-based expert estimates that 70 percent of Ukrainians who fled abroad plan to stay as long as benefits last. Soon the first wave of Ukrainian asylum seekers in Germany will qualify for citizenship.
Now, with Trump seemingly pulling the rug from under Zelensky—it’s not a stretch to imagine his cutting intelligence sharing or even disabling Ukraine’s U.S.-made Patriot missile defenses. (As Trump put it Tuesday, Ukraine is becoming, as he says about Gaza, “one big demolition site,” with some cities “worse than Gaza.”)
For now, I’m staying—but my go bag is ready by the door.
Michael Bociurkiw is an Odesa-based global-affairs analyst and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is originally from Canada, of Ukrainian origin, and his analysis is regularly featured on BBC World TV and radio, CNN, CBC, and elsewhere
