For Ukrainians and their supporters on Long Island, Donald Trump’s election victory has complicated an already uncertain future.

The new US president said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day, although he did not specify how. Trump criticized US aid to his embattled ally. He has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said late in the week that Putin appears to assume Trump “will get over it.” to the interests and preferences of the Kremlin. But it was under the Trump administration in 2017 that the United States first sent weapons to Ukraine intended to defend against the 2022 Russian invasion.

“He is an unpredictable politician. We don’t know what to expect from him, and that’s what scares us and gives hope at the same time,” said Anna Konovalova, who fled Ukraine in 2022 with her two youngsters children. Her family now lives with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, an order of Catholic nuns that has welcomed more than 100 Ukrainian refugees in recent years.

About 4,000 Ukrainian immigrants lived on Long Island in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and at least 100 Ukrainian families fleeing the war found refuge on Long Island, priests who worked to reinstall them.

Konovalova, like many refugees, still has family in Ukraine. Her brother, Ihor, is a doctor near Donetsk, on the front lines of the war, and the Russians have advanced near Dnipro, where she once lived and where her wife and son now live. “They (Russian forces) are already quite close,” Konovalova said.

If a Trump administration cuts off or reduces the billions of dollars in U.S. military aid that has so far enabled Ukraine to fight a much larger enemy, and other countries follow the U.S. lead, it could mean disaster, Konovalova said.

“We are afraid,” she said. “America is a very important partner. (Trump) has a very great influence on the whole world. If they stop helping Ukraine, we will lose our country.”

Concerns about immigration policies

Konovalova also worries that changes to U.S. immigration and humanitarian policies could affect families like hers. A federal program granting temporary protected status to Ukrainian refugees is set to expire in April. That could mean that even if Konovalova and her family build a life here – she works as a project manager for an IT company and her children learn English and attend public schools – they could be forced to leave, he said. she declared.

“Given Trump’s aggressive remarks against immigrants in general, I am concerned about the protection of Ukrainian refugees in the United States who are hiding from the war and have nowhere to go,” he said. -she declared in an email.

Alisa Taranenko, outreach coordinator for Catholic Charities of Amityville, came to the United States three months ago. and also lives with the Sisters of St. Joseph, said she finds Trump’s talk about a quick end to the war promising.

Taranenko — a native of Odessa, a port city that is controlled by Ukraine but has been hit by frequent Russian missile attacks this fall — said she worries about Ukraine’s ability to sustain a long-term war .

“We don’t have the human resources,” she said. “A million people have already died. »

While Taranenko said “it would be nice if (Trump) had solutions,” she, like other Ukrainians interviewed for this story, called a 24-hour timetable questionable. “He’s a politician who talks big,” she said. “It’s impossible.”

Having observed Trump from afar, Taranenko said: “I think he cares more about his own country. Inside the country he is good, but what about others? I don’t think he really cares about other countries.

In an email, Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, said: “The American people re-elected President Trump with a resounding majority, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made during the electoral campaign. He will deliver.

In Riverhead, Father Bohdan Hedz, a Ukrainian-American pastor of a largely Ukrainian congregation in St. John the Baptist Parish that regularly sends medical and humanitarian supplies to Ukraine, said many members of his politically mixed flock took Trump at his word when he promised an end to the war.

“We hope, like all Americans who voted for President Trump, that there will be change in this country,” Hedz said. Some of his parishioners also felt that “the outgoing administration was really dragging its feet,” he said. “The feeling is that aid was delivered very slowly, not in a timely manner, and in amounts that were not sufficient when it was needed most. This pattern was repeated for a number of U.S. weapons systems in limited use by the Ukrainians, including Abrams tanks, F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles, he explained.

Another Ukrainian priest, Father Vladyslav Budash, a priest at Resurrection Byzantine Catholic Parish in Smithtown, said he hoped clearer foreign policies would emerge after an election he described as dominated by populism and domestic concerns .

Budash said there are pragmatic reasons to hope that the Trump administration will maintain and even strengthen U.S. support for Ukraine. “Supporting Ukraine is not charity, it is a benefit to the United States” because it is fighting a country hostile to the United States and its allies.

There were also, Budash said, principles he hoped Trump would appreciate: “To make America great again, America cannot get stuck in its own problems. » If Russia’s invasion of Ukraine broke international law, so did the actions of countries like Iran, North Korea and China, which appear to have helped Russia escape the sanctions, Budash said. “How can America be great again if it doesn’t respond to all these challenges?”

“There are a lot of questions”

Marcin Glinski, a Calverton-based Polish life and fitness coach who is collecting supplies for Ukraine, said he was struck by the rush Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed in calling to congratulate Trump hours after his election . “It shows determination and desperation,” Glinski said. “He’s desperate to build relationships with Trump.”

In interviews, professionals who provide installation and other services to Ukrainians on Long Island said their customers are exhausted.

“There is tremendous anxiety and fear that Trump … will allow certain demands, certain concessions,” said Sister Annelle Fitzpatrick, director of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s resettlement office. “They are afraid that the fifth of Ukraine that Russian forces currently occupy will be given to them.”

Nadiia Veselova, case manager for Lutheran Social Services of New York, which helped place some Ukrainian refugees on Long Island, said some clients, who have been in the United States for two years, now don’t know how the policy immigration policy could change. “Ukrainians ask a lot of questions,” she said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know what will happen.”

In the dark banquet hall of the St. Vladimir Parish Center in Uniondale one evening this week, Stepan Kunitski and Iryna Boutcha, two leaders of the Long Island chapter of the Ukrainian Congress of America Committee, an advocacy group, said they did not expect Trump to care about Ukraine’s fate the way a Ukrainian would.

But Butcha said: “He might find some sort of interest in supporting Ukraine. This has to be in America’s interest.”

The argument she made in favor of the American interest was twofold. Without opposition, she said, “Putin will not stop” at the Ukrainian border but will expand to the rest of Europe, a move that would, by treaty, compel direct U.S. intervention. But, she added, “America does not have to send troops to fight…because Ukraine will protect the whole world.” The main task of the Americans is to support the Ukrainians in this fight.”