Zelensky launched a string of daring raids against Russia. He's proving to Trump that Ukraine has the cards after all

Independent

2 days ago

First came dozens of armed drones launched from trucks traveling deep inside Russia, swarming over military airfields across the country and raining down nuclear-capable long-range bombers. Then, two days later, a massive underwater bomb targeted a key bridge linking occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland.
The two daring raids by Ukrainian special forces have stunned the Kremlin, bolstered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and sent shockwaves through defense departments around the world.
But there has been an uncharacteristic silence from the White House, and its usually verbose inhabitants.
Donald Trump, who during an infamous Oval Office showdown in February told Zelensky that he didn't 'have the cards' to keep up the fight against Russia, and JD Vance, who in the same meeting asked the Ukrainian president if he had 'said thank you, once' for Washington's support, have not said a word about one of the most significant setbacks to Russia's military in decades.
John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, told The Independent he was 'surprised that there has been no public Trump comment, given his propensity to comment on almost anything.'
When The Independent asked the White House if Zelensky might have had some cards up his sleeve that the president hadn't known about, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump 'remains positive at the progress" the two sides have made in U.S.-brokered peace talks that just ended in Istanbul, Turkey.
'But he also is a realist, and he realizes these are two countries that are at war and have been for a long time because of his predecessor's weakness and incompetence,' she added.
Despite the U.S. role in brokering those talks, Ukraine did not inform the White House of the attacks in advance.
The strikes took out many of the Russian bombers that have been firing barrages of missiles on Ukrainian cities over the past few weeks, but they also destroyed a number of its nuclear-capable strike force that might have threatened the United States. That led many to ask on social media, with just a hint of irony, if JD Vance had said thank you to the Ukrainian president.
In any case, there was plenty for Vance and Trump to comment on. So why the silence?
The operation, which has been dubbed 'Russia's Pearl Harbor,' may have brought home some uncomfortable truths for the president.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine is on an inevitable path to destruction, or at risk of starting World War III, if it does not agree to a U.S.-brokered surrender that would see Ukraine give up most of the land that Russia currently occupies.
Ukraine's victories over the past few days have decisively undermined that notion, dealing a strategic and symbolic blow to Russia's military strength and striking deep into the country's interior.
Trump has also spent an enormous amount of political capital trying to bring the war to an end, specifically by attempting to enforce terms on Ukraine that it couldn't possibly accept. Those peace talks have been accompanied by a heavy Russian bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine's willingness to fight on stands in the way of that aim, which has angered Trump and Vance.
Michael Weiss, a Ukraine expert and editor of Insider, an investigative media outlet focused on Russia, said there really wasn't much Trump could say after the last few days.
'Yesterday, a Ukrainian intel officer messaged me asking the same question. Why is Trump so quiet? I told him, well — what's he going to say? The Ukrainians are starting World War III and making sure Russia won't be able to fight it half as well?' he told The Independent.
'More seriously, I suspect he knows his peace gambit is DOA. Now, even Mike Johnson is pro-sanctions. Pressure is building to penalise Moscow. If he walks away from it all, Ukraine has just shown it won't be helpless or incapacitated,' he added.
The attack coming as a surprise to the White House is significant. It's clear Zelensky does not trust the U.S. with sensitive information on account of the abrupt pro-Russia spin Trump has put on American policy towards Kyiv since returning to power in January.
Some members of the Trump administration are vehemently anti-Ukraine in part because they see Russia as a sympathetic nationalist-run power exerting itself in the face of NATO expansion and American-led hegemony. Many MAGA influencers were quick to attack Ukraine for the raids, fearing a Deep State plot to drag the U.S. deeper into the war.
This anti-Ukraine view reaches as high as the office of the Vice President, who intervened to blow up an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelensky in February by casting the Ukrainian leader as ungrateful and disrespectful to his American patrons.
While Democrats and some anti-Trump Republicans have long claimed there's a similar patron-client relationship between Trump and Putin dating back to Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election on Trump's behalf, people close to Trump have suggested the matter is far less complex.
The president, The Independent understands, sees Russia as a strong country and Putin as a strong leader — a 'winner,' in his own parlance.
But the audacity and ingenuity of this weekend's Ukrainian attacks may have — for now — positively influenced his opinion of Zelensky. Put simply, it's because Ukraine's success makes Moscow look less like a winner and more like the thing Trump hates above all else: a loser.
Indeed, Zelensky indicated that the strikes were intended as such.
'[W]hen we do show our strength, we do it justly, striking military targets. We show it not only to the Russian aggressors, but also to those of our allies who were once strong supporters but have started to waver, Zelensky wrote on X on Monday.
Weiss believes that the last few days might have demonstrated to Trump that Ukraine is not done fighting yet.
'So long as the U.S. sells arms directly or allows third-party transfers from the Europeans, Kyiv will be in okay shape,' he said.
'Air defense is critical, and this is why knocking out 20 per cent of Russia's cruise missile-firing aircraft was such a master stroke. Why hit arrows when you can kill the archer?'