'We've lost a partner and a friend': Ukrainians somber as U.S. partnership disintegrates

At an underground school in Ukraine, the mood was somber after the spat between President Donald Trump and their leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy spiraled.

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Civilians in this hard-hit eastern city say they are feeling increasingly abandoned by the United States as President Donald Trump escalates attacks on their wartime leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“It is very sad because we feel we’ve lost a partner and a friend,” Ludmilla Ivanova, a 36-year-old math teacher at the facility in the city of Kharkiv, told NBC News on Thursday. “We hope that soon President Trump will change his position.”

Ivanova’s comments were echoed by colleagues and parents at this school built underground to withstand Russian attacks, as well as many fellow Ukrainians who have watched in horror as Trump reverses American policy of isolating Russia because of its invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory.

In Kyiv on Wednesday, Yuliya Antonyuk, a 42-year-old real estate agent, said Ukrainians “couldn’t cope without American weapons and support.”

She wanted “people to stop dying every day,” Antonyuk said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-war-trump-zelenskyy-feud-putin-rcna192946

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