Philly-area Ukrainian Americans express heartbreak, disappointment as President Trump shifts Ukraine policy

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As the Russian-Ukrainian war rages on, life is hopeful at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey in Whippany, a home to cultural events and a thriving soccer community with ties to Philadelphia, South Jersey and Delaware.

Ukraine has been under siege for more than three years, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. The meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump has drawn raw and emotional reactions from Ukrainians in the Northeast, where more than 100,000 call home.

“With everything that’s going, given the political environment and given what’s happened over the last several years, we are stronger together when we can bind together in these types of activities and celebrate who we are,” said Daniel Holowaty, a soccer tournament organizer and formerly a professional player for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds soccer team. “We’re very fortunate to be here and we’re going to do everything that we can to help everybody back home, and that’s the most important.”

However, Trump’s recent statements on the conflict, the Ukrainian president and what appears to be an 180-degree turn in U.S. foreign policy, have many concerned about the future of their homeland.

The most recent development — the ill-fated meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy — has many Ukrainian Americans reeling. The White House invited Zelenskyy for an Oval Office meeting last week that included Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ostensibly to sign a deal over Ukrainian minerals Trump has demanded partly as payment for past military aid the United States has provided Kiev.

The discussion broke down as Zelenskyy insisted the U.S. provide “security guarantees” to protect the country from further Russian aggression.

The vice president called Zelenskyy “disrespectful.”

“Just say ‘thank you,’” Vance told him.

Roman Chupraynyak, coach for the Ukrainian Nationals soccer team, said he got “very emotional” watching the summit at the White House.

“I nearly blew up,” he said in an interview. “[Trump and Vance] were trying to set up a president at war for mistakes he didn’t do. He didn’t cause what happened but they’re blaming him for everything.”

Chupraynyak, who moved from Lviv, Ukraine, to Philadelphia when he was 16 years old, added that Trump said Zelenskyy was not “thankful” for the United States support so far but that Zelenskyy always “starts off with thank you, thank you to the people, whether with the president or journalists or with anybody overseas.”

Chupraynyak says he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in November for several reasons outside of the war.

More than 110,000 Pennsylvania residents claim Ukrainian ancestry and half live in the Philadelphia region, according to U.S. Census data, making the local Ukrainian-American population the second largest in the country after New York. Around 7,000 of them, like Chupraynyak, were born in Ukraine. Another 70,000 live in New Jersey and 5,000 in Delaware.

Oksana Telepko, who teaches music and language at the cultural center, said watching the meeting was “heartbreaking.”

“It was really hard for me emotionally,” she said in an interview. “I don’t know why that happened.”

The center holds culture and language classes and also hosts a futsal tournament among local soccer teams, including Philadephia’s Ukrainian Nationals. Futsal is an indoor version of soccer started in South America and often played on basketball courts, like the one at the cultural center.

Telepko, who also serves as deacon and choir director at the Saint John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church situated next to the Ukrainian Cultural Center, says that, while “everybody has a different opinion,” the community strongly supports Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 and would have been up for election again last year, but the election was postponed as a result of the war.

According to the BBC, Ukrainian polls had Zelenskyy’s favorability at 52% before Trump returned to office at the beginning of 2025, but has gone up to 65% after the U.S. president blamed Ukraine for starting the war.

“We all care about our native land,” Telepko said, adding that her daughters, both in their 20s, speak the Ukrainian language despite growing up in the U.S. “We have to stay together and support the president because only when we stay together, then we can do something.”

Iryna Grach argued that the shift in U.S. foreign policy reflects the abandonment of American values.

“This is the country of people who stand up for what’s right,” she said. “It’s something that I loved about the United States. All that was shattered yesterday because I felt that the strongest person in the United States bullied and beat someone who has been struggling for the last three years without a chance to defend himself in a foreign language while being attacked in a foreign territory. So it’s a very sad feeling.”

Grach, who was picking up her 9-year-old fraternal twins from Ukrainian culture and language classes at the center, identifies as a Republican. She says she voted against Trump in November for reasons other than Ukraine.

“I don’t think he has integrity, the way he talks to people, the way he treats women, the way he treats people who don’t have the advantage,” she said. “That was the one time when I didn’t vote for Republican. I voted for every other Republican but him.”

While everyone WHYY News asked expressed concerns over how the U.S. is currently handling the situation, some were still optimistic that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine.

Maksym Bukachevsky, who was playing for Shaktar United, a New Jersey-based team in the tournament, voted for Trump in November, and expressed disappointment at recent developments.

“I don’t think I would change my vote but, being Ukrainian-American, I was disappointed with how he treated Zelenskyy” at their White House meeting, he said, adding that he still believes that Trump still wants peace and has Ukraine’s interest at heart. “I just don’t think he articulates his words in his actions in the best way.”

He also believes that Trump’s closeness with Russian President Vladimir Putin can help bring an end to the hostilities.

“Putin’s the one that started the invasion with his actions and his military deployments, and I do think with Donald Trump’s relationship with Putin, they can possibly work out something with Zelenskyy,” he said. “I think the fact that they’re there talking and they’re trying, at least it’s the first step.”