Trump says he wants to do a Ukraine deal with Putin. Here’s a reality check from the ground

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Surrey, England: Greetings from the Hand & Spear Hotel in Surrey, England.

I’m sitting in the kind of pub where you could relax all afternoon and forget to go home. The shelves behind me are lined with books and I sink into a leather armchair waiting for an old friend to join me for lunch. I feel at home as soon as I arrive: the music is low, the lighting is soft, and the air is cool on a hot summer’s day. Sitting here, you could feel sure that all was right with the world.

But I’m at this pub to discuss a place where so much is all wrong. I’m catching up with Shaun Hopkins, a tech worker and aid volunteer, on his return from the eastern edge of Ukraine. The Hand & Spear, in a small forest in Weybridge, is the best place to meet: I can get the train from London, and he can turn off the M25 without messing with city traffic.

Shaun walks in the door with an easy hello. He is a big man with a quick smile and a hint of Welsh music in his voice. Nobody would guess that he was in Pokrovsk two days earlier – a town in the news this week because it could be caught by a sudden Russian advance.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen,” he tells me of his latest visit. “It reminded me of the first journeys I did to Ukraine when the Russians were still around Kyiv. I didn’t know what to expect when I first went into Ukraine, and I was back in that situation again 3½ years on, looking for drones and not knowing if we go down this lane, whether or not there’s going to be Russians.”

Shaun is on his way home after delivering medical aid and vehicles to the front line. This was his 60th trip since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and one of the longest: he has driven a small van about 3000 kilometres to Pokrovsk and the same distance back, and he has a few hours to go before he arrives home to his partner, Toni, and their two sons near Cardiff.

I met Shaun three years ago when I wrote about volunteers who created a supply chain from Australia to Ukraine. He was one link in the chain: a tech support guy who set up his own aid group, UK4UA, in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Australian medical supplies were sent to Heathrow, where Shaun helped the team effort by loading them into a van and driving to a hospital in Kyiv. I joined him in Poland and spent a week on the journey.

Now we are meeting again at a pivotal time for Ukraine and Europe. US President Donald Trump will talk to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday about a ceasefire, and the mere fact of the summit is a victory for Putin after he spent weeks escalating attacks on Ukrainian civilians. There is very little hope that this summit will lead to peace.

How are Ukrainians feeling? “Forgotten,” says Shaun. “In the places we’re going, there’s no big international NGOs.” Donations have fallen, and the large aid organisations are stretched. The further east he goes, the fewer aid groups he sees. Instead, he sees more apartment buildings with blackened holes where homes used to be.

He is frustrated with media attention that focuses on missile defence when drones present so much danger. He shows me a photograph of a vehicle blown to bits by an FPV – a first-person view drone controlled by an operator who can see through the drone’s cameras. “There’s a lot of intent because the Russians can quite accurately target things,” he says. “Time and time again, we see hits on civilian buildings and hospitals and playgrounds.”

Russia is making drones at a rapid rate, using Iranian designs and Chinese parts. The result is not just the Shahed, the flying triangle with a warhead at the tip, but smaller drones that look almost amateur. One of them, caught in a net, seems like a square toy with four propellers, but also carries an explosive. The war in Ukraine has sparked an arms race with consumer electronics.

Shaun shows me a video of soldiers madly speeding along a road in an SUV ute with its doors blown off and its roof missing. “It’s now a cabriolet,” he quips. Part of his work involves buying old SUVs in the United Kingdom and finding drivers to take them to Ukraine for his friend Yaroslav Kolodiy, who runs a charity called Wheels of Victory. The soldiers always need more vehicles.

Shaun and Yaroslav have driven across Ukraine to dozens of cities and towns, but this latest trip highlighted the pressure from Russian attacks. A guard post they passed before on the E50 highway, just near Pokrovsk, looked deserted. They could not be sure if they were driving into an area that was within range of a Russian FPV.

“If you see a drone, you’re dead,” he says. “You’re looking for drones, but you don’t want to see one.”

I’ve met volunteers inside and outside Ukraine over the past three years, and I am struck by the way they sustain their commitment in the face of anguish, tragedy and sheer exhaustion. One reason is the deep belief in their cause. When Shaun and Toni were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May, they told Prince Edward why they persevere: “Ukraine is the front line of freedom.” They mean it.

Perhaps Trump and Putin will reach a deal. Even with a ceasefire, however, the humanitarian task in Ukraine is so enormous that it will last years.

Can Shaun keep up this work? “I don’t know,” he says.

But he said the same to me three years ago. I expect he’ll be back in the van for Trip 61. Whatever happens on Friday.

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