{"id":150645,"date":"2025-08-16T13:57:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T13:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150645\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T13:57:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T13:57:16","slug":"ukrainian-group-in-phoenix-not-surprised-by-results-from-trump-putin-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150645\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian group in Phoenix not surprised by results from Trump-Putin meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Ukrainian community groups in the Valley were waiting anxiously to see if a ceasefire or something would come from the high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Russia\u2019s President Putin on Friday. One of those groups was Cactus and Tryzub<\/a>, which formed after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. <\/p>\n

No ceasefire deal was reached<\/a>. Prior to the meeting, President Trump had said he would be unhappy if he walked away without some sort of deal. <\/p>\n

\u201c(I\u2019m) not surprised,\u201d said Olya Johnson following that outcome. She was born in Ukraine and is now a U.S. citizen living in Phoenix. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is, they can agree (on) whatever they want to agree, but if the Ukrainian president<\/a> will not be part of this conversation, if European allies will not be part of this conversation, it will not go anywhere,\u201d said Johnson. <\/p>\n

She did not have much hope going into the meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we were so welcoming to (Putin) and extending him with open arms versus the way we treated President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy when he came here is actually quite appalling,\u201d said Katrina Schaffner, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors from Ukraine. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the only way that it is acceptable to be sitting down with a war criminal like Putin is to actually encourage him to make concessions and to return all of the children that have been illegally kidnapped and abducted from Ukraine,\u201d said Schaffner. <\/p>\n

She and Johnson are both part of Cactus and Tryzub. While Johnson was not optimistic about ceasefire negotiations, her mind is on her mother in Ukraine. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnly two weeks ago, it was actually a direct hit less than a five-minute walk away from where she lives,\u201d said Johnson. <\/p>\n

As world leaders try to work out a deal, she says people like her mom are waiting while facing violence. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are tired. The general (Ukrainian) population is tired, but still resilient,\u201d said Johnson. <\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 Ukrainian community groups in the Valley were waiting anxiously to see if a ceasefire or…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[934,5229,5643,1587,7182,88491,15432,69,38612,1589,7183,1683,273,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,274],"class_list":{"0":"post-150645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-alaska","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-azfamily","13":"tag-cactus-and-tryzub","14":"tag-citizen","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-meeting","17":"tag-phoenix","18":"tag-phoenix-news","19":"tag-results","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115038797542080497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}