A Year After Trump’s Scolding, Zelenskyy Turns Out To Have A Lot Of Cards

Ukraine’s star rises while Trump’s autocrat friends suffer setbacks in Moscow and Budapest.

Senior White House Correspondent, HuffPost

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 stronger position than Trump could have predicted 14 months ago.

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.

“Ukraine seems to be getting stronger, and Putin seems to be under increasing........

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