On the southeast front, Ukraine – Ukraine’s largest underground hospital is an amazing Timber underground warren and high -tech medical machines. More than 4,300 square feet of operating rooms, one USI, dormitories, nurses and even a small gym, both floors underground.
Not far from the southeast front line, this extraordinary installation is a monument to Ukrainian ingenuity and resilience. We are witnessing an ambulance coming forward with injured soldiers. One of the men is visibly distraught. We take his commander on one side
“He lost three friends in a drone strike,” said the commander. “One was a parent.”
Ukrainian soldiers with the 33rd separate mechanized brigade obtain training in the event of a gas attack during military training on March 13, 2025 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Ukraine has accepted a proposal supported by the United States for a 30-day ceasefire, Russia has not yet issued an official response. (Photo by Paula Bronstein / Getty Images)
Images Paula Bronstein / Getty
I take my chance to wonder if all this sacrifice seems to be worth it, now that they will not be able to count on American support longer.
“If we lose support, we will fight with our hands,” he says.
I ask what he does with the conversation of Putin of peace. He laughs. Everyone here laughs.
“Poutine lies,” he said to me. “I have been fighting since 2014 and I know the price of Putin wars.”
Does he worry that Trump will listen to Putin’s lies?
Ukrainian soldiers with the 33rd separate mechanized brigade obtain training in the event of a gas attack during military training on March 13, 2025 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Ukraine has accepted a proposal supported by the United States for a 30-day ceasefire, Russia has not yet issued an official response. (Photo by Paula Bronstein / Getty Images)
Images Paula Bronstein / Getty
“He is the American president. He was elected. He can’t be stupid.
I ask what he did with the meeting of the oval office between Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky two weeks ago, which ended with a widely reported cries match. The commander pays attention to his words.
“Maybe it’s the way it works,” he says. “And we don’t see the situation as a whole.”
No one here will openly criticize Donald Trump. They want war to end. And they know that only he can really help them end them. But they are not about to abandon what they fought so hard.
What the end looks like, however, no one knows.
