‘We’re Being Sold Out’: Anger At Soldier’s Funeral In Kyiv As Trump Pressures Zelensky

Kyiv: On a grey morning in the heart of Ukraine’s capital, the crowd at Maidan Square stood shoulder to shoulder. Black flags swayed, posters of watercolor battlefield scenes rippled in the breeze and an open casket lay at the center. Inside was 39-year-old David Chichkan, an artist, activist and soldier, killed by a Russian drone strike on the frontline earlier this month.

Hundreds came to say goodbye. The grief quickly turned to fury.

“After thousands of people died in this war, it feels like we are just being sold out now,” said Oleksandra Grygorenko, 45, who had traveled from Poltava.

She clutched a sketchbook filled with Chichkan’s work. Her voice carried over the crowd, “It is just some kind of fatal coincidence, that today there is this great farewell happening. And at the same time, our president is clearly being pressured into something in Washington.”

At the funeral, fellow soldiers stood in silence with family and fans. Around them, mourners raised banners painted with Chichkan’s images of trenches, shattered cities and faces of the fallen. He had long called himself an anarchist and an artist who turned to war not for ideology but for survival.

The timing stung. As bells tolled over Maidan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat thousands of miles away in Washington. He faced US President Donald Trump’s demand that Ukraine give up Crimea and abandon NATO ambitions, conditions described as essential for peace.

“It just creates a kind of background contrast that feels especially stark from Ukraine when our best comrades are being killed, and at the same time, American soldiers are rolling out the red carpet for Putin,” said Dmytro, the sergeant major of Chichkan’s unit.

He had just finished addressing the crowd when he stopped to speak with reporters.

Dmytro’s eyes did not leave the casket. “I do not care about what is happening in the United States, because it does not affect our determination to keep fighting,” he said.

For Ukraine, funerals like this have become daily rituals. Names read aloud, flags folded and families shattered. In Kyiv, the loss of Chichkan carried an added weight, a reminder that art, activism and even defiance are all being buried with each drone strike.

The crowd lingered after the service, unwilling to leave. As hymns gave way to silence, the posters of Chichkan’s art seemed to echo the mood: a country bleeding, a people unbowed and a war that feels far from any peace Trump claims to offer.