Sloviansk, Ukraine
—
On the beaches of Sloviansk’s tiny salt lake, where the medicinal waters provide a moment of solace from the whirling violence of the eastern frontlines just a few miles away, talk of a Ukraine land deal at Friday’s Alaska summit seems dark and surreal.
“I feel like I just float away from this reality,” said local journalist Mykhailo, in between dips into the water, from the lake’s sands overlooked by a large concrete bomb shelter. Shelling is regular near here, which Mykhailo jokingly calls “the Salt Lake City of Sloviansk.”
But the Kremlin’s proposal to US special envoy Steve Witkoff to exchange a ceasefire for the parts of Donbas that Russia has yet to conquer means this town, and those near it, could suddenly become Moscow’s territory. And even on this quiet beach, it’s caused what Mykhailo calls “panic.”
“Many of my friends want to stay here and we all will have to leave,” he said. “But frankly speaking I don’t think it is going to happen.” There is defiance, and recognition the high stakes diplomacy US President Donald Trump is engaged in with Russian President Vladimir Putin may fall as flat in execution as it has been hurried in preparation.
“What Trump did wrong he took him out of the bog – he took him out and said ‘Vladimir, I want to talk to you. I just like you,’” said Mykailo. “He didn’t care that every day Ukrainians die.”
To Ludmila, moving herself to the waters in an arm-propelled wheelchair, the salt lake is a brief moment of buoyancy that provides relief from her injuries from stepping on a land mine two years ago. It is a daily pain that leaves her unimpressed by diplomacy.
“There, they are lying,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “For them it is all a spectacle. They decide one thing, say another, and do another. That’s always been politics.”
Across the Donetsk region, word of Witkoff’s emerging deal with the Kremlin, confused in details, and immediately refused by Kyiv, has put lives already ravaged by war into a deeper spin.
The town of Sloviansk was first taken by Moscow’s proxy “separatists” in 2014 before Ukrainian forces retook control. New ditches have been hastily dug to its west to prepare for the possibility Russia’s ongoing offensive might threaten the town itself once again. But few imagined their key ally, the United States, might entertain the idea of giving their home away.
In the town’s maternity ward, the only functioning facility of its kind for miles, Taisiya strokes Assol, her daughter born Sunday into a world where suddenly the risks of being in Sloviansk have multiplied.
“I saw the news,” she said. “That would be very bad. But we have no influence on that. It’s not going to be our decision. People will just give away their homes.”
Births and deaths continue, that of Sofia Lamekhova is particularly distressing. Her parents, Natalia and Sviatoslav, had been glad when she and her husband, Mykyta, decided to live with their newborn son Lev in Kyiv. As Sviatoslav said: “We wanted them to be further from the frontline. Here in Sloviansk, every day there are drone attacks and shelling.”
But the family of three were found in the rubble of the July 31 airstrike on an apartment block in Kyiv, killed together by the building’s collapse. Sofia was three months pregnant and due in Sloviansk in a few days, to tell her friends the good news.
“They left from the war, and it was quiet there, but the war caught them there,” said Natalia. Sviatoslav added: “To come to terms with that as a person is impossible. It is impossible to come to terms with the loss of children.”
They had spoken the night before Sofia died. “She said she really wanted to come to Sloviansk,” said Natalia. “To tell everyone the news, spread the joy. But they didn’t return. They came back together, differently.”
Sofia’s mother is macabrely referring to the family’s burial on the outskirts of town. A Ukrainian jet roars overhead as she and her husband tend the dusty flowers on their burial mounds. The couple cannot leave Sloviansk – their home, but also where they provide food and water aid to many of the locals, often elderly who live alone and survive on handouts.
The nearest train station is Kramatorsk, the de facto capital of Ukrainian held Donetsk, a bustling town, where civilian life sustains among the military who are based there. A vast airstrike took down a central building – tearing through its four storeys and into its basement. Russian drone attacks are regular. But the city brims with the urgent business of survival in war, and the war itself.
The train from Kyiv arrives to air raid sirens on Monday. Dozens sit on the platform to greet and replace those arriving from the capital. Weeping is Tetyana, whose husband Serhiy, has been fighting since the second day of Russia’s full invasion and has been given two days off from his tank unit outside Kostiantynivka to celebrate his birthday.
As Tetyana weeps, the soldier gently admonishes her fuss. “It would have been better if she had not come,” he said. “Calm down.” Tetyana has little interest in the wider machinations of Trump’s diplomacy. “Do you know what my dream is? Just for my husband to come home. I don’t care about those territories. I just want him to be alive and come home.”
The train picks up to return to the capital, men placing their hands to its moving glass windows, and a girl etching a heart on a closing door. The sirens continue.
