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| teenagers on the shore of the Bug Estuary in Mykolaiv |
By a frontline journalist based in Mykolaiv since 2022
While American and European diplomats meet in the air-conditioned luxury of Miami hotels to sketch out the future of my country, I am writing this from a city where the water in the taps is still salty, and the windows are permanently taped against blast waves.
The recent leaks published by The Washington Post regarding a proposed four-point peace plan—brokered by U.S. envoys like Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner—have sent a shiver through the Ukrainian South. To the policy architects in Washington, a ceasefire along the current frontlines paired with a BlackRock-backed reconstruction package might look like a pragmatic business compromise. To us in Mykolaiv, it looks like a slow death sentence.


















