Zelensky says 10 killed as Russia aims to ‘humiliate diplomatic efforts’ before White House talks – follow live

Katy Watson
Reporting from Kyiv

In Kyiv’s Independence Square – or Maidan – there’s a makeshift memorial to those who’ve been killed since Russia’s full invasion began in 2022. It’s a sea of blue and yellow Ukrainian flags, as well as photos of those who’ve lost their lives in the fighting.

Staring at two photos side-by-side, 65-year-old Natalia explains that her daughter Valentyna and boyfriend Danylo were killed last November on the frontline. Both were 29.

“On the very first day of the war, [my daughter] said if not us, then who? I want to live in a free Ukraine,” Natalia tells me.

Valentyna fought in several parts of Ukraine – and spent a considerable time in the Donetsk region, which is part of the Donbas. That’s the area that President Zelensky may be asked to give up to Russia in return for freezing other parts of the frontline.

“She said that she had never seen such a beautiful land as Donbas,” Natalia says. “She fell in love with it, you know?

Valentyna died in the north eastern Kharkiv region.

Natalia’s family is from Sumy, also in the north east of Ukraine, close to the Russian border.

“They’re erasing everything there, you know?” she says. “It’s terrible what’s being done there.”

On last week’s Alaska summit between Presidents Trump and Putin, Natalia was frank. “They laid out a red carpet [for the Russian president],” she tells me. “It makes a mockery of Ukraine.”

And of today’s meeting at the White House, Natalia has little hope.

“I’m afraid they might expose Volodymyr Zelensky again, like last time,” she says, referring to the disastrous meeting he had with Donald Trump in February. “It was a mess for the president, he didn’t deserve it, the way he was treated.”