On the streets of Kyiv few were reading too much into the US pulling out of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Signs the Americans were tiring of their role as dealmaker emerged last night when the State Department said it would no longer “fly around the world at the drop of a hat” for meetings after Vladimir Putin refused to agree to a ceasefire.

On Wednesday, Ukraine signed an agreement that will let the US exploit the country’s vast mineral resources and Donald Trump’s administration has told Congress it would approve arms exports worth at least $50 million.

But when it comes to negotiations, the State Department has now said Russia and Ukraine must deal directly with each other. “It’s going to be up to them,” spokesman Tammy Rice told reporters.

Residents of Kyiv felt Donald Trump’s impulsive and unpredictable nature made the announcement hard to judge.

“I think Donald Trump is like a small child who only listens to the person giving him attention at that moment,” Oleksandr Borushko, 60, told the Express.

“One day he leaves the negotiations, tomorrow the negotiations will come, then they will be abandoned. I don't think he knows what will happen.”

The pensioner didn’t believe this necessarily showed the US was moving closer to Ukraine, although Kyiv needed their help “as much as possible.”

“I think that the mineral agreement is very good. If the United States will be here Putin won’t come,” he added.

Irina Lebed, 54, has given up feeling like the US will fully support Ukraine since Trump took office.

“We understand that Ukraine is not a state that can fully resist an aggressor like Russia,” she said.

“There were hopes that America, a powerful country that defends democratic principles would help us. In the past there was support but now we don’t feel it.“

Some were even more cynical about the announcement the US was pulling out of its role in the peace negotiations.

Soldier Dmytro felt, following the minerals deal, this could be a tactic to get even more from Ukraine.

“This is just another PR stunt,” the fighter said. "It is either to show the US are important or that Ukraine is no-one without them."

Speaking on the condition he would not be pictured because he feared his family who live in occupied territories, might be targeted, Dmytro believes Trump’s intentions are not pure.

He said: “Trump is a good economist. In the past, he lifted the US economy, but at this moment, he doesn’t need peace; he needs some kind of advantage. So he’s saying for peace, we must give up 50% of our resources.

“Ukraine has a lot of previous debts that we need to repay and it’s bad to give away half our minerals.”

Many of the people we spoke to in Kyiv have grown so despondent by the relentless negativity surrounding the war that they have tuned out completely.

Nataliia Shepeleva, 42, explained that she no longer reads the news to “protect [her] psychological condition and surround [her]self with more positiveness.”