Weary Ukrainians Recoil at 'Capitulation,' Amnesty

After nearly four years under fire while fighting off Russia's invasion, exhausted Ukrainians say President Trump's peace plan only adds to their anguish. Many maintain that the Trump administration's proposal amounts to capitulation. In Bucha, site of a mass killing in 2022, residents expressed horror at the provision granting amnesty to those who committed atrocities. "It's a green light," Father Andriy Halavin said after services at the Church of Andrew the Apostle on Sunday, the AP reports. "It means you can keep bombing, keep executing soldiers, all with confidence that nothing will happen." And Ukrainians who fled to the US under a humanitarian program said it's not clear now what will happen to them. Reaction includes:

• "I can't accept that": Vira Katanenko, 66, visited the grave of her son Andrii, who was killed in battle in the Donetsk region last year. Amnesty for the atrocities committed by Russian troops while occupying Bucha, which included "systematically" raping women and filling mass graves before they fled, is unthinkable, she said. "They want forgiveness for all war crimes, including Bucha? That's horrifying," Katanenko said. "Let them come here—let Trump himself come here. Let him and his family come, see our pain, and maybe then they'll change their minds."

• "It is horrific": In western Ukraine, where a Russian missile strike killed at least 34 people in Ternopil on Wednesday, per Reuters, Iryna Urezchenko, 66, is among those opposed to the US proposal. "This peace plan means that we are fighting for nothing, giving our lives for nothing," she said, per the New York Times. "Is this the kind of plan that's needed?" Viacheslav Nehoda, head of Ternopil's regional military administration, said at the site of the destruction while showing photos of victims on his phone. "This is a proposal to capitulate to an enemy that is destroying civilians, that is killing people."
• "Everyone is exhausted": Leonid Komsky, 61, said in Kyiv that though everyone in Ukraine is worn out, they will have to keep fighting. "It is better to die standing than to die later as a slave," he said.

• "For what?": At the funeral near Bucha for a 41-year-old machine gunner killed in eastern Ukraine, Andrii Honcharuk said he couldn't see why Ukrainians would turn over the territory of their ancestors, per the AP. "The war will not end soon," said the 71-year-old retired territorial defense volunteer, who attended the burial in uniform. "We will still be dying for a long time."
• In the US: About 260,000 people who fled the war to live in the US are waiting for the Trump administration to decide the fate of the humanitarian program that brought them, per Reuters. In Fort Lauderdale, Kateryna Golizdra, 35, lost her job as a manager at the Ritz-Carlton when her legal status lapsed six months ago. While she's waiting for a decision on the program, officials said, she could be arrested by immigration agents. "It's a constant stress, anxiety," she said. "If I will need to leave the States, then I will have to build something again."