As she sweeps up broken glass outside her shop, Inna knows her country’s future is in the hands of Americans voting more than 5,000 miles away.
“We hope that the woman, Kamala Harris, will win and support us,” she says.
A Russian bomb had shattered her shop windows – a common occurrence in the city of Zaporizhzhia. There’s a 10-metre (32ft) wide crater in the middle of the road.
“Of course we are worried about the outcome [of the election],” she adds. “We want to defeat the enemy!”
For Ukraine to have a remote chance of doing that, it needs the help of the US.
It was here in 2023, on this south-eastern part of the front line, where Ukraine launched a counteroffensive it hoped would force out the Russian invaders.
Instead, after little to no progress, Ukraine’s ambitions have switched to survival. Missiles and glide bombs slam into towns and cities daily, and its soldiers weather constant Russian attacks.
While Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris has suggested military aid would continue if she emerged the victor, her powers could be constrained by a Republican-run Congress. And the pipeline of military support, which so far totals more than $50bn, is looking less likely to be sustained under a second term for Donald Trump.
Whoever becomes the next US president will have a profound impact on Ukraine’s borders and everyone who lives within them.
If, for example, they forced Ukraine to give up land and freeze the front lines, then regions like Zaporizhzhia could become suddenly divided like North and South Korea after the ceasefire that halted fighting – but never officially ended the war there – in the 1950s.
Trump has said he would “work out something” to settle the war and suggested Ukraine may have to give up some land.
A second US option would be to pull its support completely, which would mean over time that Russian forces could eventually engulf the entire region and even more of Ukraine beyond it.
The third scenario of Ukraine completely liberating its occupied territories is looking less and less likely.
