A train slowly pulls into Berlin Central Station.
As the doors open, crowds of Ukrainians spill on to the platform.
Some hold tightly on to the small bags they carry, or the loved ones they hope now are safe.
They believe the war will be over soon; they have no idea that it will be years before some can return home.
This was the scene on 1 March 2022.
Germany is now home to the most Ukrainian refugees in the European Union.
Some of the 1.2 million seeking shelter still live in sprawling container camps.
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On the edge of one, we meet Olena P who fled at the end of 2022 with her son, Valentin, and her parents.
In Ukraine, they lived in an apartment, now everything is crammed into a boxy cabin.
After more than three years of fighting, there’s no sign it’s safe to return to her home by the border.
Donald Trump once claimed he could stop the war in 24 hours of becoming president.
That hasn’t happened, but I ask Olena if his meeting with President Putin in Alaska gives her fresh hope that the fighting could soon be over.
“I don’t know anyone who trusts Trump,” she snaps back in reply. “It’s a horrible joke, this meeting with the terrorist president of Russia. It’s unbelievable.”
Sprawling container camps in Berlin housing Ukrainian refugees
Moscow has always stood by its decision to launch what it called “a special operation” in Ukraine.
The ensuing invasion forced Olena to flee her home in the city of Kherson.
“We had an apartment by Dnipro river. It was a beautiful apartment, but it was destroyed,” she says showing me a video of a flame-ravaged neighbourhood.
“My city, Kherson, is destroyed every day, people die every minute.”
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Olena is furious that they have lost everything, and the Russia president they hold responsible has been invited to the US for a meeting.
“I’m angry. I’m disappointed. I don’t understand why. I understand for Trump it’s only money,” she tells me.
Olena P says Trump’s meeting with Putin is a ‘horrible joke’
President Trump has made clear his desire for the fighting to end.
“I’m trying to stop the ridiculous war in Ukraine. Too many people have died,” he said in April.
Ahead of the summit, he said he believed Putin would make a deal, but in a flat just north of Berlin’s centre, 31-year-old refugee, Mariia, is feeling dismayed.
“Is it normal to play with a war criminal and boost your ego? Or is it normal to help another state to defend people?” she fumes. “It’s a way larger issue than just Ukraine’s territory, it is about the world order.”
Mariia Borysova fled Kyiv in the summer of 2022.
Mariia Borysova, 31, asks whether it is ‘normal to play with a war criminal’
She flicks through photos of her home city, commenting on how much it has changed.
She fears Ukraine will be forced to sacrifice more land before the fighting stops.
Mariia Borysova recalls how much the war has changed her home city of Kyiv
“I do not see how giving up land helps to win, because so far what the practice has shown is that Putin plays more wildly when he gets what he wants,” she says.
President Trump has said any land swaps will have to be signed off by Ukraine and warned there will be “severe consequences” if Putin doesn’t agree to peace.
But in a Ukrainian cafe in the former Soviet-run east Berlin, mum-of-four Olena Kroshka is sceptical.
Olena Kroshka is sceptical about the Trump-Putin meeting
When Russian forces invaded in 2022, they occupied her village for more than a month.
She remembers seeing men in black searching the streets.
Olena Kroshka, who fled to Berlin from Ukraine, fears her country is about to be sold short
Some neighbours were interrogated or shot.
Her family eventually escaped to Berlin, but she fears her country is about to be sold short.
Olena Kroshka (centre) with friends after arriving in Berlin in 2022 from Ukraine
“Do you trust President Trump to represent Ukraine?” I ask.
“I think he is a trader, and he is pretty brutal in his policy and he’s pushing the people to get the conditions he wants,” she says.
“What about President Putin? Do you think he has any desire for peace?” I ask.
“I don’t think that he is considering those terms, like peace and not peace. I think he has kind of a picture in his head. He’s just trying to get it by any means,” she replies.
Olena, like the other refugees, has lost so much – friends, family, whole lives have been destroyed.
They’d love to think the Alaska meeting is the first step on a path to peace for Ukraine, but very few believe that’s true.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
