Hamilton Steiner: Ukraine has paid too much to listen to Trump

KIEV. Donald Trump can abandon Ukraine and make the country's fight for survival more difficult. But pressuring the Ukrainians into submission is impossible. They have already sacrificed too much – giving in now is not an option. An excerpt from Dagens Nyheter, 2026-10-19 21:33 Original address of the article: https://www.dn.se/varlden/hamilton-steiner-ukraina-har-offrat-for-mycket-for-att-lyssna-pa-trump/ Hamilton Steiner: Ukraine has sacrificed too much to listen to Trump Get more from DN as logged in You know you can create a free account on DN? As a logged-in user you can access several smart features. - Follow your interests - Newsletter During the night leading up to Monday, new Russian missiles reached Kiev. Shortly before midnight, at three o'clock, and at seven in the morning we were awakened by explosions from ballistic robots. The blasts came again without warning from the air raid siren – a reminder that the USA has turned its back on Ukraine. By all accounts, the limitation of the Starlink satellite system and the intelligence handed over to Ukraine's air defense have come after orders from the highest levels. And over the weekend, Donald Trump continued to attack Volodymyr Zelenskyj. Trump demands that Kiev stop attacking Russian energy facilities and blames Ukraine for the soaring world market price of diesel – despite his own war against Iran being the biggest cause of the price increase. It is difficult to see how Ukraine will manage to withstand the Russian war machine in the long run without American help. But continuing to plead with the White House is pointless, it seems Zelenskyj now realizes. Instead, Ukraine's drone forces responded to the US agreement with Russia with a massive attack on the oil terminals in St. Petersburg. The single largest attack on Russian territory during the war. "Zelenskyj does not want to end the war. He could have made a better deal two years ago," Trump writes on Truth Social. In fact, it is the people of Ukraine who refuse a peace agreement on Russia's terms. There is no agreement, neither then nor now, that Ukrainians are willing to lay down their weapons for. In February 2022, large numbers of volunteers were ready to join the army and the entire society was reorganized to defend the country's independence. Four and a half years later, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and over 20,000 Ukrainian civilians have died. For every Ukrainian, the war has meant great sacrifices and in most cases, relatives have died or been wounded. A son, a daughter, a father, or a best friend who gave their life for a free Ukraine. Last week I met a woman named Susanna in Zaporizhzhia. She works in the food chain Silpo. In the summer, her workplace was completely destroyed by a Russian drone attack. The same thing happened in September when she moved to another store. Now she is waiting for a third store to work in. Several of her relatives are stuck in occupied areas. I asked her about the future, if she has any hope. – It is hard to find hope and I don't know what will happen. But we try not to think too much about the future, all we can do is just keep living as well as possible. The 41-year-old Dmytro has seen most of his friends and relatives leave Zaporizhzhia, the city where he grew up and lived large parts of his life. Before the war, he worked with renting out kayaks to tourists who wanted to paddle in the river. Now he, like hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainians, has just found a job in the defense industry. – It's impossible to think about a normal life and it's not as if the occupied areas will just be returned to us. Emotionally it is very difficult, optimism is declining, but we have no choice. We have to keep fighting, he says. I visit a mine in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyj's hometown. Here, practically the entire population depends on the heavy industry – and Russia is trying to destroy it. Extensive attacks on the iron and steel industry have stopped large parts of the city's operations and made many people unemployed. The solution: They are recruiting into the military. According to the company Sucha Balka, which operates two of the largest underground iron ore mines in Ukraine, more and more of their workers are joining the defense. Tens have died. Kreml is trying with everything to make life unbearable for Ukrainians and now Vladimir Putin also seems to have Trump on board. But the terror against the country's inhabitants is in vain. Cities and areas that Russia does not manage to occupy by advancing at the front will remain Ukrainian, no matter how many bombs are dropped on them. The will to resist in Ukraine seems as high now as it was at the outbreak of the war. There is no strong opinion in any front-line city to let the Russians come. However, there is a way of dealing with the situation that is working, both among civilians and among the military I meet: They are moving forward. If Trump really wants to stop the enormous losses the war entails, it is a big mistake to try to get Ukraine to give in to Russia's terms. Read more: