OPINION: Fold, Call or Raise: Zelensky’s Options After Trump Cards Dealt

The smoke hasn’t cleared from the Oval Office shouting match between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump, but the fallout is already a five-alarm fire for Ukraine. What started as a high-stakes bid to secure a minerals-for-aid deal and lock in American support ended with raised voices, a canceled press conference, and Zelensky storming out of the White House early.

Trump’s parting shot on Truth Social – “He’s not ready for Peace” – wasn’t just a jab; it was a knife in the back. Three years into Russia’s meat-grinder invasion, Zelensky is right to seriously question the United States’ commitment to helping Ukraine secure a just and equitable peace. Trump famously said that Ukraine had no cards to play – but is that true? 

What’s on the table?

Trump expected President Zelensky to roll into Washington DC and ink a deal trading Ukraine’s rare earth minerals – as well as lithium, titanium, and other natural resources – for a lifeline of US weapons and cash. Before Zelensky could uncap his pen, he got a face full of Trump’s trademark bluster: “You’re gambling with World War III,” the American barked, flanked by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who later, incredulously, called Zelensky out for “antagonizing” his boss.

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World War III? Not likely. There is no nuclear Armageddon on the horizon, and the truth is that despite Putin’s doom-pedaling, there is no prospect of nuclear war. A bilateral nuclear exchange with the US is not Putin’s only nightmare. Actually, he faces not one nuclear-armed adversary, but three. The UK and France are independent nuclear armed adversaries. Putin is a madman – but he is not suicidal. Besides, what is there to nuke in Ukraine? It is a nation without strategic targets – unless Putin intends to incinerate 3 million people in Kyiv. There are 13.1 million people in Moscow – and I’m sure Putin can do the math.

It took only 10 minutes of live TV chaos – Trump’s minerals deal was DOA, and the US was huffing it would cut Ukraine off from billions in pending military aid – radars, missiles, intelligence support, the works. For President Zelensky, a war-time leader who has spent three years begging for ATACMs to strike at Russian air bases and air defense systems to protect the civilians in his cities, it was a rude shock.

What cards can Zelensky play?

Let’s answer that question by standing it on its head. What cards does Putin have to play? The world’s press and many social media consumers seem to have utterly misapprehended the ground truth of the war in Ukraine. Russian casualties are now estimated at 350,000 dead and 750,000 seriously wounded; 10,000 Russian tanks litter Ukrainian battlefields, roughly five times the total number of tanks possessed by NATO in all its European armies.

It is true that Ukraine is fighting for its life, but it is equally true that Putin is bogged down in a war he cannot, and will not ever, win. 2024 was hailed as a banner year for Russian advances in Ukraine. How good was it? Russia lost 480,000 troops and captured an area the size of Los Angeles and the surrounding suburbs. Give or take the size of Los Angeles County.

This far in Putin’s 72-hour Special Military Operation, Russia has lost more than 23,528 artillery systems, and 21,139 armored vehicles – not to mention naval dominance of the Black Sea. The bottom line? Putin’s military adventure has turned into a quagmire as deadly and futile as Vietnam or Afghanistan. 

With 47% of Russia’s GDP supporting 95% of Russia’s military in Ukraine – and no victory in sight – Russia is arguably weaker now than it has been since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that allied the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany back in 1939. There will be no summer offensive to take Kyiv, just as there wasn’t one last summer, or the summer before that. Moscow no longer has an army capable of large-scale ground maneuver warfare. They are played out.

It is Putin who desperately needs a ceasefire. His army is frazzled, riddled with mutineers, his logistics are increasingly dependent on donkeys, and his assault troops are literally riding to the zero line on golf carts. Men on crutches are thrown into wave attacks. This isn’t winning. It is symptomatic of an army tottering on the razor’s edge of collapse. 

Zelensky knows, even if Trump the deal-maker does not, that peace is desirable – but it is not as precious or as enduring as national security.

Putin needs to play the ceasefire card desperately. And it is certain that if he gets one, he will honor it for only as long as it takes to reequip and rearm his troops in Ukraine.

It’s been said that all international relations are based on domestic policy. Trump and Vance’s snarling at Zelensky may have played to the fringes of the MAGA crowd, but an overwhelming majority of people in the United States support Ukraine. Only 6% see Russia as trustworthy. If Trump and Vance sought a political bump from the Oval Office ambush, they might be in for a shock. The impression Trump made on his NATO allies was not positive. The US is now seen as a wild card and not a world leader.

Returning from Washington, Zelensky has found that his own already impressive popularity has been turbo charged. Not only domestically in Ukraine, but throughout the EU and NATO member countries. He was welcomed with open arms in the UK and met with King Charles in the bargain.

Back home, Ukrainians rallied around their president. “He fought like a lion,” said retiree Nataliia Serhiienko in Kyiv. A military friend texted me from Kursk, “Better war than shameful peace.” Gutsy, sure, but guts don’t stop Russian glide bombs. Washington was supposed to be a lifeline. It remains a question mark.

It’s an underreported fact that American and Russian diplomats were meeting in Turkey before Zelensky’s Washington trip. About 36 hours before Trump’s Oval Office tantrum, talks between Russian and American diplomats seem to have been inconclusive, with the Russians walking out. It is very likely that Moscow has stuck to its usual maximalist demands, a sobering reminder of how Russia sees the war and how it sees Ukraine.

Europe: the White Knight that ain’t coming

Can Zelensky pivot to his European allies? The short answer: maybe. After today’s conference, NATO’s European partners have announced a “Coalition of the Willing” to backstop Ukraine as it approaches negotiations. There is a possibility that European boots may be put on the ground – maybe French, Polish, or even Turkish – but no commitment from the US. There is also no timeline to NATO intervention or peace with Putin. We are not yet at the point anyone can call the beginning of the end of the Ukraine war.

NATO’s Mark Rutte has been cagey, but Europe may indeed pony up a force to watchdog any deal – think tens of thousands, not some token UN blue-helmet crew. Kyiv wants muscle, not just observers, and they’re angling for guarantees that echo NATO’s Article 5. Will that happen? Too early to call.

Here’s the rub: Europe’s got heart, but its pockets are empty. The British army has more horses (492) than main battle tanks (408). NATO’s big spenders – Germany, France, the UK – have boosted defense budgets since Putin’s 2022 blitz, but they’re still lean after decades of leaning on Uncle Sam.

Zelensky knows this. He’s stated repeatedly and correctly that Ukraine needs security guarantees to underpin any negotiated settlement. NATO membership or peacekeepers might certainly answer, but Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Moscow’s inside man, would veto it faster than you can say “Putin’s Poodle.”

Counting on Europe to fill the military gap is a big leap. They’ll try, but they can’t carry Ukraine alone. Zelensky’s got to look to Washington, distasteful as it might be now – or get creative.

Negotiated settlement: the devil’s bargain

A negotiated settlement with Vladimir Putin is a fraught hope: it could stop the bleeding (temporarily), but it might cost Ukraine its soul. What’s a “just and equitable” deal look like? Kyiv’s got non-negotiables: Crimea, return to full territorial integrity, security guarantees to stop Putin from reloading and hitting again in five years, like he did Chechnya.

Putin’s present demands are equally uncompromising: dictating Ukraine’s international relations, its renouncing of NATO forever, slashing Ukraine’s military, and ceding occupied turf – Crimea, Donbas, maybe more.

Trump’s pushing hard for a deal – perhaps any deal, cozying up to Moscow with talks in Istanbul and Saudi Arabia, where Kyiv wasn’t even invited. The fear? Washington and Moscow might carve up Ukraine if Zelensky doesn’t play ball.

Option one: Zelensky takes Trump’s deal – minerals for peace, some US aid, and a frozen front line. It’s a bitter pill, but it buys time.

Option two: he goes rogue, leans on Europe, and prays for concrete action from a European NATO composite force while Ukraine plays a long defensive game, watching as Putin is slowly swallowed in Ukrainian quicksand.

The bottom line

Zelensky is in a vise. Washington is no longer reliable – or even predictable – Europe is scrambling but under-gunned, and Putin’s dream of parading through Kyiv’s Maidan (Independence Square) is costing both Russia and Ukraine a generation of men.

Kyiv Post’s sources say Zelensky’s team is “regrouping,” but the vibe on the ground is grim. Ukraine’s leader can wait for Europe’s rhetoric to become reality, roll the dice on a settlement that stinks of surrender, or fight on with whatever’s left in the tank. None of it’s pretty, and none of it’s guaranteed. But if I’ve learned anything from war, it’s this: when the chips are down, you don’t fold – you bluff, you brawl, or you bleed. Zelensky’s still standing. For now.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.