Maryna Tymchenko walked to the U.S. embassy on Wednesday morning and held up a homemade cardboard sign over her head: “Reagan would have hated it,” the sign read, alluding to the former president who famously called the Soviet Union “an evil empire.”
She said she felt whiplash from the past two weeks as the United States, once Ukraine’s top ally, and the Republican Party, the party of Ronald Reagan, appeared to back Russia in its war against Ukraine.
But Ms. Tymchenko, who skipped lunch for the small protest, was nuanced in her views: She was angry with President Trump, who appeared to blame Ukraine’s leaders for Russia’s invasion of her country. But she was grateful for America’s past support of Ukraine’s war effort.
She was confused: Why had the United States aligned with Russia? Why had initial talks to end the war taken place between the United States and Russia while leaving out Ukraine? Why was the Trump administration pushing Ukraine to sign a deal — which appeared to be in its final stages on Wednesday — that would grant the United States at least some future profits from the mining of critical minerals in Ukraine?
“It feels like a knife in the back from your dear friend,” said Ms. Tymchenko, 27, who works for an information technology company in Kyiv. “That’s why I’m here. It’s so weird. That’s not what the U.S. is supposed to do. You’re the leader. You’re strong. Why don’t you support us?”
As anti-American protests go, this was more of a plea for help than a shout of anger. There were no chants of “Death to America,” as happens at even the most benign protests in Pakistan or Iran. The woman who organized the protest was gentle in her admonitions.
“Trump is making America very small,” the organizer, Anabella Morina, said several times, while holding a banner that said “God, save America” and depicted the Statue of Liberty, Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a strange embrace.
There were more police officers and journalists at the embassy’s front gates than the handful of protesters. The protest, announced on Facebook on Monday, was held in the middle of a workday, and most attendees were retirees or activists.
Still, the demonstration was emblematic of what could become a shift in Ukrainian opinion on America, with President Volodymyr Zelensky taking a more barbed tone toward its longtime ally in the war.
“Our people are used to criticizing their own president — that’s our prerogative,” Ms. Morina said. “Trump has no right to interfere. I apologize in advance for criticizing your president, but he is interfering in our affairs. This is my opinion, but I also know many who share my view — his current policies are aimed at Ukraine’s defeat.”
A poll by a Ukrainian company called Rating Group that was conducted after Mr. Trump called Mr. Zelensky a dictator found that Mr. Zelensky’s approval rating had gone up, to 65 percent from 57 percent in January.
“I was against Zelensky myself, I never voted for him,” said Alla Iskra, 61, a former economist and casino manager who came to the protest on Wednesday. But, she added, “When Trump went against Zelensky, we all united.”
Under President Biden, the United States was Ukraine’s biggest supporter, leading an international coalition against Russia and its invasion.
But now, Ukrainian online memes feature photos of Mr. Trump alone, juxtaposed with photos of Mr. Zelensky surrounded by Western leaders, as he was in Kyiv on Monday, the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A frequently shared meme features a cartoon rendition of a well-known photograph from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in the early days of the invasion: a broken bicycle and a young man’s body. Only this rendition included Mr. Trump looking down at the body and saying, “You started it!”
Ukrainians typically love a good protest. In fact, past ones have led to revolutions: the Revolution on Granite in 1990, the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013 and 2014. Throughout the war, demonstrators have gathered on a weekly basis to protest the plight of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
But protests at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv have, until now, been rare.
Several Ukrainians at Wednesday’s protest assailed Kyiv’s deal this week in which it agreed to turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States.
Pavlo Derhachov, 35, called it “a new form of colonialism, hybrid colonialism.”
And signs at the protest proclaimed “no blackmail” and “no to looting Ukraine.”
Ms. Iskra, the former economist who was among the protesters, said she feared Mr. Trump’s insistence on gaining access to Ukraine’s critical minerals.
“When Trump started talking about mineral resources, I thought he meant something good, something about helping and protecting Ukraine,” she said. “But then I realized this is just business — he is making money off Ukraine.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting from Kyiv.
