{"id":96736,"date":"2025-12-26T23:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96736\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T23:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:13:09","slug":"local-ukrainians-react-as-trump-zelenskyy-prepare-for-meeting-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96736\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Ukrainians react as Trump, Zelenskyy prepare for meeting in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TAMPA, Fla. – As world leaders prepare for high-stakes talks in Florida, the war in Ukraine feels anything but distant for members of the Ukrainian community in Tampa<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

With President Donald Trump set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u00a0at Mar-a-Lago, local Ukrainians say the visit comes as their homeland continues to endure daily violence.<\/p>\n

MORE NEWS: Zelenskyy says he will meet with Trump ‘before the New Year’<\/a><\/p>\n

“Everybody gets used to living in stress,” Roman Voloshyn, who owns Pierogi Bar, a Ukrainian restaurant in St. Petersburg<\/a>, said. “That’s what it is. [We] get used [to] people being buried every day.<\/p>\n

Voloshyn doesn’t have much hope President Zelenskyy\u2019s visit to Florida <\/a>to negotiate with President Trump will bring Russia any closer to leaving Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u00a0“This war is about Ukraine as a whole,” Voloshyn said. “Ukraine as a culture, Ukraine as history.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0Zelenskyy\u00a0announced on X that he is traveling to Mar-a-Lago because his side is “not losing a single day” in trying to work for peace, and that “a lot can be decided before the new year.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0“Russia wants Ukraine to capitulate,” Jurij Priatka said. “The problem with that, is Ukraine cannot capitulate because if they do, they cease to exist.”<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Zelenskyy\u00a0is coming to Florida as bombs continue to rain onto Ukrainian <\/a>territory, including an attack on a Ukrainian road that killed several civilians.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“What’s crazy about it is that it’s almost become normal for them,” Priatka said. “It’s a normal way of life, and it shouldn’t be. There’s nothing normal about any of this.”<\/p>\n

The Source: Information for this story was gathered from interviews with local Ukranians.<\/p>\n

Tampa<\/a>Politics<\/a>Donald J. Trump<\/a>Russia-Ukraine<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – As world leaders prepare for high-stakes talks in Florida, the war in Ukraine feels anything…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28763,47,28,30,29,629,115,992,99,51238,135,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-96736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-donald-j-trump","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-hillsborough","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-people","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-russia-ukraine","18":"tag-tampa","19":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}