It seems that Zelenskyy is convincing Trump that Russia is losing. Last week, Trump said that Ukraine needs to stop attacking Russian refineries. Perhaps that post was a little bit too one-sided, so he followed up with: there’s an agreement between Ukraine and Russia not to attack each other’s energy infrastructure. It didn’t seem that Russia was aware of that. And then Ukraine said, well, we haven’t heard anything like that. And then Zelenskyy doubled down and said that if Russia actually does that, then only then will we agree.
Which means that suddenly it seems Zelenskyy is holding cards. What cards is he holding? While Russia is still able to create devastation and loss of life in Ukraine, it is not able to conquer all of Ukraine. Even if the political leaders of Ukraine were no longer there, even then Ukrainians would not give in to Russia — because giving in to Russia spells certain doom, as every Ukrainian has seen, and as every person in the West should have been able to see, because that has happened in the occupied territories. That has happened in Crimea, in Donetsk, Luhansk, and parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Putin still claims all these territories as Russian. They’re not. They’re Ukrainian.
Ukraine has just destroyed two years of conquest aimed at creating a bridgehead in the Donetsk area. They took it back. The area around Lyman was strategically important. Two years of advance, destroyed. Yes, Russia still has innovation — but so does Ukraine.
Zelenskyy apparently feels strong enough to be able to say to Donald Trump: no, I’m holding cards. And Trump seems to recognize it. Let’s see what follows, because this zigging and zagging — as colleagues like Professor Gerdes describe it — is driving some people nuts.
And it’s interesting, though, that Trump now signs this — well, there’s this draft of an agreement on Greenland, which strengthens NATO’s and America’s position in the Arctic against China and Russia. He also signed the Lindsey Graham Ukraine aid bill.
So even though we’ve had the travel of Witkoff and Kushner to Putin and then to Ukraine, and nothing came out of it — because how could it, since Putin doesn’t want to stop this war — Ukraine is creating facts on the ground, and coalitions of allies, that tell Russia very clearly: you will not take Ukraine completely. You are destroying your own country.
It is Putin who is the biggest Russophobe on the planet. It is Putin who is destroying his country, and the people of Russia are probably aware of that more and more.
Now, Putin has just probably won his fake elections. Fake, because the parties who are really against the war weren’t even admitted. The candidates who would really challenge him weren’t even allowed to run. That’s how you fake an election.
But should he want to move toward more conscription? Should he want to recruit more Russians for this senseless war?
Russia is known as this country where people just say, “Yes, Mr. Putin. Yes, please dominate me.” That’s not quite correct. Or rather, it’s correct, but it’s incomplete.
There was the Russian Revolution before the Bolshevik Revolution. Then there was the Bolshevik Revolution. Then there were the changes that Stalin made after Lenin, and the changes that Khrushchev made after Stalin. Then there was Gorbachev, and glasnost and perestroika, which for a brief moment created a form of democracy in Russia.
Russians have a history both of compliance and of saying “enough already.” I do believe we are approaching the point of “enough already.”
The problem in Russia is its government. Don’t make the mistake of hating all Russians. I’ll never argue that. We are never talking about people. We are talking about leaders, governments, and systems. Whatever is allowing this thing to still go on in Russia — that is the problem. That needs to change.
Zelensky has just communicated that he believes it’s changing. And Zelensky has not yet been punished by Trump for saying that, for resisting the call not to attack Russian refineries.
Everything Ukraine attacks in Russia is connected to this war. Most of the things that Russia attacks in Ukraine are not connected to this war. And even the ones that are connected to the war — well, Ukraine didn’t start this war. Russia did, in 2014.
Russia wants to destroy Ukraine as an independent entity. It wants to erase Ukrainian identity as something separate from Russian identity. That is the mission Putin is following. It has failed, and it will fail in the future. And we need to help make it fail. We need to help Ukraine defeat Russia. We need to help Russians defeat the system that is terrorizing them too.
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
