WASHINGTON — A little over a year after President Donald Trump scolded him during a nationally televised Oval Office meeting, insisting he held “no cards,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is proving he holds a few after all.
Setbacks for Trump ally and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and the world’s newfound appreciation for Ukraine’s drone-focused defense industry have given Zelenskyy a remarkable reversal of fortune and a much stonger position than Trump could have predicted 14 months ago.
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In Moscow on Saturday, Putin, who expected to take control of Ukraine within days of his 2022 invasion, will instead oversee a Victory Day parade that is drastically scaled down out of fear of Ukrainian long-range drones and missiles. Russian airports were closed in the preceding days and cell service periodically shut off as security measures. Putin himself has cut back on public appearances over fears of assassination attempts or even a coup.
On the same day, 1,000 miles to the southwest, Putin’s biggest defender in Europe, Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, will officially hand over power to a new prime minister, Peter Magyar, whose election last month has already opened the door to more European Union and NATO help for Ukraine.
“Great split screen,” said Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who served in Trump’s first-term National Security Council, of the simultaneous illustrations of Putin’s misfortunes.
Zelenskyy’s Ukraine, meanwhile, has essentially stopped or even reversed Russia’s advance in the eastern Donbas region with an increasingly lethal drone industry. It is striking deep into Russia to hit military and oil infrastructure, cutting defense production deals and further integrating its economy with Western Europe, selling cheap anti-drone interceptors to Gulf states under attack from Iran — all while Zelenskyy travels easily among European and world capitals to build support for Ukraine’s cause.
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“Ukraine seems to be getting stronger, and Putin seems to be under increasing economic and demographic pressure, maybe even possible unrest, at home,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon official and now an analyst at the Center for a New American Security. “So it seems Ukraine may be taking on an advantage.”
In a White House meeting barely a month after returning to office, Trump infamously chastised Zelenskyy for having been invaded by Russia three years earlier and for continuing to ask for assistance from the United States. “You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out, and if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty,” Trump told him. “You don’t have the cards.”
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Trump, who has long admired Putin, early on called the dictator’s invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy.” If he had hoped to help the accused war criminal by cutting off Ukraine from any further U.S. military aid, though, the opposite appears to have happened. Ukraine instead sought and received even more military help from Western Europe, which sees Russia as a direct threat, while simultaneously stepping up its own domestic production of weapons.
Ukraine’s small battlefield drones have effectively created a stalemate at the front lines in the eastern part of the country, with Russian advances coming only at great cost. Zelenskyy estimated Tuesday that Russia had seen 35,000 of its soldiers killed or wounded last month, exceeding its ability to replace them. Ukraine’s long-range drones and new “Flamingo” cruise missiles, meanwhile, have been striking Russian military factories, oil loading ports and refineries — attacks that Zelenskyy describes as “sanctions” Ukraine is now unilaterally imposing against Putin.
Trump wooed Putin to a “summit” in Alaska last summer, claiming he would emerge with a ceasefire, but instead got nothing. Since then, he has taken to “both-sidesing” the conflict, never acknowledging that Putin’s invasion started it, and has repeatedly said he cannot understand why Putin and Zelenskyy do not get along.
Despite this, Putin still sees Trump as the best means of forcing Ukraine to cede territory so he can end the war on Russian terms, said Tatiana Stanvaya, a Moscow native and a Russia analyst at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. Putin appears to be biding his time, she said, as Trump continues his war against Iran, with the hopes he will eventually turn his attention back to Ukraine.
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“Putin needs a deal, but on his conditions,” she said, adding that she does not believe that Ukraine’s longer-range attacks will make Putin reconsider the war. “I don’t think it will make him change his mind… It’s a big question who can stand longer: Zelenskyy or Putin.”
But if Putin is counting on Trump to reengage on the Ukraine war, he is miscalculating, said John Bolton, one of Trump’s first-term national security advisers. “I think Trump just wants to stay away from Ukraine. He sees the whole issue as a loser for himself,” he said.
Trump’s White House did not respond to HuffPost queries.
Russia has held its traditional, full-on May 9 Victory Day parade, marking the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany, in Moscow each of the last four years since Putin’s February 2022 invasion. This year, though, with Ukraine possessing the ability to hit targets even beyond Russia’s capital, Putin has downsized it. The parade will not feature heavy military hardware like tanks or missiles and will have fewer troops.
“They fear drones may buzz over Red Square,” Zelenskyy, a former professional comedian, said Monday at a conference of European leaders in Armenia. “This is telling. It shows they are not strong now.”
I think Trump just wants to stay away from Ukraine. He sees the whole issue as a loser for himself.John Bolton, first-term national security adviser for Trump
Putin even proposed a two-day ceasefire covering May 9. Zelenskyy countered with a ceasefire starting at midnight on May 5, with an offer to keep the fighting stopped for as long as Russia abided by it as a precursor to a permanent peace agreement. Putin responded to the offer with a wave of even deadlier missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian civilian targets than normal, including a strike on a kindergarten in Sumy. A total of 27 Ukrainians were killed.
“It is obvious to any reasonable person that a full-scale war and the daily murdering of people are a bad time for public ‘celebrations,’” Zelenskyy wrote in a social media post Wednesday. “As of today, we can confirm that the Russian side has disrupted the ceasefire regime. Based on the evening reports from our military and intelligence, we will decide on our further actions.”
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That Putin felt the need to beg Ukraine not to attack his parade has led some European governments to wonder if there is even less to Russia’s military might than has been assumed of late. “This is a pretty clear message that he’s weaker than most of the world is thinking he is,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told CNN Wednesday.
As for Orbán, after years of serving as Putin’s most reliable defender in the European Union and NATO, the Christian nationalist leader is stepping down after last month’s walloping by voters enraged that his cronyism and corruption had materially made their own lives more expensive and difficult. He is leaving the Hungarian parliament altogether and reportedly planning to travel to the United States.
His successor, Peter Magyar, has vowed to hold investigations into the misuse of public money during Orbán’s years. He has already opened dialogue with Zelenskyy and allowed a $106 billion loan from the EU that had been blocked by Orbán to proceed.
Townsend, who also worked at the U.S. office at NATO, said Zelenskyy’s work to broaden his support and Europe’s efforts to build up their own defenses mean that Trump has less leverage over Ukraine than ever.
“If Trump abandons Ukraine, there would not be as big a blow as in years past. Europe is swinging heavily in support of Ukraine. They finally get the existential threat to Europe if Ukraine can’t hold the Russians back,” he said. “The United States doesn’t provide much assistance anyway and Ukraine manufactures more and more of its own equipment and has industrial partners in Europe to help. The only thing lost is the U.S. diplomatic effort, which is pro-Russia anyway and is coercive against Ukraine’s interests.”
