At the Trump Pizza Station in Kyiv, where the internet password is “TrumpLovesYou,” one woman burst into tears when she learned that the United States was suspending military aid to Ukraine. Another sipped a cappuccino with banana milk and lamented that the whole world seemed to be abandoning her country.
Most people at the neighborhood pizza and coffee joint on Tuesday morning agreed that it was time for the Trump Pizza Station to change its name, citing the losses they had suffered in three years of war.
Anastasiia Berehovenko, 24, who is studying to be an obstetrician-gynecologist, stood in line for a bottle of water and counted off the people she knew who had been killed by the Russians on her fingers: Her brother, a childhood friend, her neighbors.
Then she stopped.
“Honestly, I don’t even think I have enough fingers to count everyone I know who has died,” she said. “I think this is all very sad for us, for Ukrainians. It only means one thing — that even more Ukrainians may die.”
In recent weeks, every day feels like a fresh punch in the gut to Ukraine, whose cities have been under assault by Russian forces since the full-scale invasion of February 2022.
Under Joseph R. Biden Jr., the United States was Ukraine’s biggest ally. But since President Trump took power in January, the United States has done an about-face on its foreign policy, making good relations with Russia a priority over those with Ukraine.
Mr. Trump has called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a dictator and falsely blamed his country for starting the war. U.S. officials held initial peace talks with senior Russian officials in Saudi Arabia — without inviting Ukraine. And then on Friday, a meeting between Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance turned spectacularly hostile. The leaders failed to sign a deal on critical minerals as they had been expected to do.
Since then, all Ukraine seems to have been holding its breath. Many people had been hoping for the resurrection of the minerals deal, so that the United States would continue to support Ukraine in return for a share of profits from its resources.
But on Tuesday morning, those hopes were dashed — at least for now — when news spread that the United States was temporarily suspending military aid.
Aliona Khrul, 24, a lawyer, didn’t see the news before going to the Trump Pizza Station to get a coffee and a tuna sandwich. When she heard about the U.S. decision, she started crying.
“I feel like we are being abandoned, just abandoned by everyone,” said Ms. Khrul, who like everyone else here, said she had lost people in the war, including a classmate and a close friend. Last week, she attended the funeral of a good friend of her boyfriend who was killed fighting at the front.
She added: “And in the end, what was the point of all the fighting, of all the people who died? I don’t know what to do.”
Across the country, from the occupied territories in the east to cities in western Ukraine, people said they were shocked and upset about what the U.S. decision might mean. Some said Ukraine would have to make the best of a bad peace; others said Ukraine would keep fighting, hopefully with European support.
Artem Kholodevych, 33, a lieutenant colonel in the military who lost his right leg at the front, said he believed that Ukraine had enough stockpiles of weapons to hold out until European allies could increase aid deliveries.
“If U.S. aid does not resume throughout Trump’s entire presidency, it will be an unpleasant and challenging period for us,” he said. “But in that case, European security will face an even greater threat, which is why I am confident that our allies in Europe will respond accordingly and significantly increase their support for Ukraine.”
In Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, one woman, who spoke anonymously by phone because she was worried about retaliation from Russia, said she felt Mr. Trump was trying to get Ukraine to accept a bad deal by temporarily suspending aid.
“Ukraine now has very little room to maneuver,” she said.
Members of Mr. Trump’s team were not politicians, but political entrepreneurs, she said. “They perceive Ukraine as a weak competitor in this marketplace, one that must accept the conditions set by the market leader and submit.”
She added: “Unfortunately, humanitarianism is absent from U.S. politics. They do not care about Ukraine’s casualties, its tragedies, or the war crimes committed by Russia against Ukraine.”
Many Ukrainians had hoped that Mr. Trump would bring peace.
In the months after the U.S. election in November, they said that Mr. Trump’s unpredictable style might actually help Ukraine. Some Ukrainians spoke positively about Mr. Trump’s business acumen and had hoped that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — rather than Mr. Zelensky — might rub Mr. Trump the wrong way.
After Mr. Trump’s 2016 election, one Ukrainian businessman even created two cafes named after Mr. Trump, including what is now the pizza place.
The Trump Pizza Station used to be the Trump White Coffee Bar but decided to add pizza to the menu in January. The pizzas have English names, and the restaurant’s soundtrack features a lot of ZZ Top, including the song “Breakaway,” a song about a potential breakup.
One pizza, the Trumpino, has red sauce, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and Grana Padano cheese. On some of the signage, the letter “u” in Trump has been made to look like a half-filled coffee cup.
Volodymyr Pynzenyk, 31, a risk management consultant, was eating at the cafe on Tuesday afternoon and pointed out that Ukraine had started producing its own weapons.
“Nothing much changes for us. We have always had to be in the position that we are independent, for ourselves,” he said. He added: “Perhaps the situation is not as critical as it seems.”
Many people here complained about the cafe’s name. Here was one thing they could change, something tangible, when everything else felt so out of control.
“I don’t think this place will survive with that name here,” said Dasha Holomoz, 21, a college student who complained there were no other cafes nearby.
Over the past month, people started asking the cafe’s employees about the name, sometimes aggressively, according to the manager, Serhii, 37, who didn’t want his last name used so that he would not be targeted by online critics in Russia.
Serhii, who wore a T-shirt with the colors of the Ukrainian flag and the word “Unbreakable” on the front, said he was against changing the name — they had been building the Trump coffee brand for the past five years, after all. But the owner has caved.
Soon, he said, the Trump Pizza Bar will be known as the Frank Pizza Station — “frank” as in honest and forthright. By Tuesday night, the cafe had already changed its social media profile to feature the new name.
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn, Liubov Sholudko and Evelina Riabenko contributed reporting from Kyiv, and Yurii Shyvala from Lviv, Ukraine.
Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.
