Olena Konovaliuk of Chicago fears she might never again see her family in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where she was born and raised, as Russian President Vladimir Putin demands the land be relinquished to Moscow during ongoing U.S.-led peace talks.

Giving up Donbas — or any portion of the war-torn nation — is unfathomable to Konovaliuk and many other locals of Ukrainian descent, who insist their entire homeland must be sovereign without exception or partial surrender.

“This sounds threatening to me because my family is still there. It is like saying, ‘Please take off your arm and give it to us,’” she said. “I know that there are people … in the eastern region that are still fighting. They still have a pro-Ukrainian mindset and they don’t want that connection to Russia.”

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