Ukrainian-Americans watching Trump, Putin summit closely from New York City
EAST VILLAGE, Manhattan (WABC) -- As President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared to sit down at the negotiating table, thousands of miles away, the lunch crowd in the East Village sat down to bowls of borscht.
Diners gathered at Veselka, the temple of Ukrainian gastronomy in the East Village on Friday afternoon.
"It's just two egomaniac rulers who feel that they want to stroke their egos at this particular instance," said Jason Birchard.
Birchard, a third-generation owner, has been supporting his ancestral home from afar and can't quite believe that 10 years after Russia first invaded Ukraine, Putin is involved in so-called peace talks when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not.
"I feel like I'm living in a bad episode of the 'Twilight Zone,' nobody recalls the atrocities Putin has committed, bombing hospitals, schools, invaded a sovereign country," Birchard said. "And to invite him to the U.S.? To Alaska? I have real reservations about what will get accomplished."
The East Village enclave is the hub for tends of thousands of Ukrainian New Yorkers, where local church leaders pleaded for peace on Friday.
"Over two million people in Ukraine have lost their homes because of this war. There are over 12 city centers that have been completely wiped off from the face of the earth."
The Russian drone strikes still reach deep inside Ukraine and have attacked frequently at night this summer - adding to the terror of families who have already lost so much.
"You have civilians who get killed and they're innocent, they just don't wake up in the middle of the night, that's just the scary part," said Ukrainian American Christina Obertos.
Obertos and her twin sister Ana were born and raised in New York, but visited family in Ukraine this summer.
"You never know when your city is next, you never know when your building is next," Ana Obertos said.
They said what they saw shocked them.
"All these people had bright futures ahead of them. They made plans they created businesses, ideas, and now they're all, they're all gone," Christina Obertos said.
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