The confrontation still shocks: “You don’t have the cards… without us you don’t have any cards,” bellowed US President Donald Trump at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025. Within the hour, the Ukrainian delegation was unceremoniously ushered out, the plated lunch abandoned cold. Just a little over a year later, as Vladimir Putin hosted the lavish International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, the “Russian Davos,” the attendees from 100 countries were looking at enormous plumes of smoke billowing from nearby Russian military bases as Ukrainian drones repeatedly hit their targets 1,000 kilometers away. Clearly, Ukraine has some impressive “cards.” JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. This may not yet be a turning point, where Russia is forced to negotiate a good-faith peace agreement that ensures Ukrainian sovereignty and security. Too often optimism regarding Ukraine has turned to despondency. Nonetheless, the turnaround is striking. February 2025 was a watershed. Trump, a President bereft of real strategy, often displaying nauseating narcissism intertwined with petty vindictiveness and an evanescent attention span, proceeded to cut Ukraine loose by ending funding and limiting help to minimum intelligence co-operation, with US weapons sales restricted to those purchased with European funds. Further, Washington pressed Zelensky to reach a settlement and to accept many of Putin’s dangerous maximalist demands.