😱Zelenskyy’s strongest card REVEALED — Putin asked for a TRUCE!

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]What happened here is, and you put it well, that the guy that Donald Trump said has no cards, President Zelenskyy, had cards.

[00:00:09]He had cards, which is he and the Ukrainian military could attack deep inside Russia, whether or not it was Red Square, whether or not it was Moscow, whether or not it was somewhere else in the country. They could attack on Saturday.

[00:00:23]And they chose not to.

[00:00:26]Ukraine, in other words, now has the initiative with these attacks inside Russia.

[00:00:32]It now has cards to play on whether or not it strikes these key positions, oil refineries, terminals, ports, factories, petrochemical installations, chemical installations, engineering installations, and even as they did about a week ago, hitting buildings inside Moscow.

[00:00:53]That will be a situation that now continues beyond Victory Day. Joining me today is Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics at the University College Dublin's Clinton Institute.

[00:01:04]Welcome back to my program, Professor Lucas.

[00:01:08]Thank you so much, Daniel. Great to be here.

[00:01:11]As always, if you'd like to see more such deep dive conversation, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, World at Stake. It will help us to reach wider audience.

[00:01:22]Russia's dictator, Vladimir Putin, said Russia's war against Ukraine is coming to an end on May 9th.

[00:01:30]Meanwhile, President Zelenskyy allowed Vladimir Putin to hold his parade in Moscow. Uh President Trump, meanwhile, also uh brokered a 3-day ceasefire to also allow Putin to hold his parade in Russia's capital.

[00:01:49]Don't you think that this is a turning point in this war? Putin had to take from Ukraine's permission to hold this parade and right now it seems Ukraine has much more valuable cards and much more leverage over Russia.

[00:02:10]Well, I I think we need to clear away some of the noise to get to the reality and >> [clears throat] >> to start with an important loud noise.

[00:02:23]That Putin's statement that the war is coming to an end, which all the media got very excited about.

[00:02:28]I actually, you know, listened to a translation of the speech. Indeed, I watched it.

[00:02:33]And it's not quite as they portrayed it.

[00:02:36]It's not like Putin says, "That's it.

[00:02:38]You know, everything is almost done, whether it's through a ceasefire or through victory."

[00:02:43]This was at the end of his 45-minute speech in uh or the 45-minute ceremony, I should say, in Red Square for Victory Day.

[00:02:55]Uh so, it wasn't like a key point that the entire speech or the ceremony was built around. It was almost I wouldn't say a throwaway comment, but it was it was kind of a general comment that was made that you could read in a couple of different ways. The first is, "Look, a lot of Russians are tired of this invasion that's in its fifth year as a full-scale invasion.

[00:03:17]You know, a lot of these people would like it to be over. So, it makes absolute sense to me that Putin would tell people, 'It's going to be okay.

[00:03:23]Soon it's going to be over.'" Now, maybe it will be, maybe it won't be, but he's going to tell people that. But also, Kremlin officials were very quick to spin this to say, "Oh, when Putin said this, it'll still be over, not in the sense that we're going to accept a ceasefire or even that we're going to accept a compromise, but that the Americans will put pressure on Ukraine to surrender to us."

[00:03:45]Now, that's very, very interesting because, of course, we're in the middle of the stalled Ukraine-Russia-US talks.

[00:03:52]Ukraine has just been in discussion with the Americans through its lead negotiator, Mr. Umerov, in recent days.

[00:03:59]And the Russians are saying, "We can get the Americans to make Kyiv give up."

[00:04:04]That's probably a far more important takeaway in terms of the way that the Russians are playing this because I see no sign that they're going to accept a ceasefire in terms of a lasting ceasefire.

[00:04:15]So, let's park the idea that Putin sees a way out of this invasion in the near future uh that there's an alternative to him just continuing to press on and hope that Ukraine will break.

[00:04:30]Now, the Ukrainian side of the story.

[00:04:33]In the run-up to Victory Day on May the 9th, you know, [snorts] when Russians celebrate this victory over Germany in World War II, there was this back and forth. You and I talked about it last week, which is the Kremlin, which is very worried that Ukraine would attack the ceremonies, had said, "Let's have a ceasefire. Let's have a ceasefire."

[00:04:54]Now, according to President Zelenskyy, they never communi- communicated that to to Kyiv. They just sort of publicly wanted to put it out there.

[00:05:03]So, Zelenskyy, of course, countered and said, "All right, you want a ceasefire, I'm going to declare a ceasefire on May the 6th, which was the Wednesday."

[00:05:12]And of course, the Russians didn't observe that ceasefire. They carried out thousands of attacks over the next few days.

[00:05:17]So, there was this political fencing that was going on.

[00:05:21]What happens is I think it was on the day before, it was on May the 8th, so it was a day before the Victory Day ceremonies, Donald Trump, who likes to announce things on social media, says, "I've just, you know, three-day ceasefire. I've just talked to Zelenskyy, I've talked to Vladimir Putin."

[00:05:39]What it appears, what happened, is that Trump spoke to Zelenskyy, and he asked Zelenskyy to observe a ceasefire for the weekend.

[00:05:50]And Zelenskyy agreed.

[00:05:52]Now, the Trump guys are saying, "Oh, look, Donald Trump can make Volodymyr Zelenskyy do whatever he wants to."

[00:05:58]That's a complete misreading of the situation.

[00:06:01]What happened here is, and you put it well, that the guy that Donald Trump said has no cards, President Zelenskyy, had cards.

[00:06:10]He had cards, which is he and the Ukrainian military could attack. He inside Russia, whether or not it was Red Square, whether or not it was Moscow, whether or not it was somewhere else in the country, they could attack on Saturday.

[00:06:25]And they chose not to.

[00:06:27]Ukraine, in other words, now has the initiative with its attacks inside Russia.

[00:06:33]It now has cards to play on whether or not it strikes these key positions, oil refineries, terminals, ports, factories, petrochemical installations, chemical installations, engineering installations, and even, as they did about a week ago, hitting buildings inside Moscow.

[00:06:54]That will be a situation that now continues beyond Victory Day.

[00:06:59]And what it means to bring all of this to the close is that this conflict is not going to end.

[00:07:06]Vladimir Putin is going to continue to try to conquer Ukraine.

[00:07:10]But not only is he failing to succeed inside Ukraine, Russia is now on the defensive in some areas. It is on the defensive rather than the offensive when it comes to these Ukrainian counterattacks.

[00:07:24]Let's do some deep dive into this uh short negotiations on three-day ceasefire.

[00:07:32]From your perspective, did Vladimir Putin ask President Trump to force Zelenskyy to agree with ceasefire proposal, to do ceasefire?

[00:07:44]Yeah. I I don't think Putin I don't think called Trump directly.

[00:07:49]Now, we don't know beyond that and whether Russian officials went to Trump's officials and said get Trump to call Zelensky.

[00:08:00]That's the way it would have happened, right? Remember the envoys, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, son-in-law Jared Kushner.

[00:08:08]You could have had a Kremlin official, whether it was Yuri Ushakov, the foreign policy advisor, more likely Kirill Dmitriev, uh the financial advisor who is the guy who really, you know, manipulates Witkoff, they could have put that message across to the Americans or Trump could have decided to do it off his own bat. You know, you can't rule that out.

[00:08:29]I think whichever way this played out, and the Kremlin won't say this, it showed that they're vulnerable. You know, they couldn't just simply go into that ceremony on May the 9th without something without some type of message getting to Zelensky, don't attack.

[00:08:46]However they did that, and remember that even before that occurred, that you already had the signs that the Kremlin was was concerned, even fearful, when they limited the ceremonies. No military hardware, no armor, no missiles, no artillery, a ceremony which lasted less than half uh it was 45 minutes this year, it was an hour and a half last year.

[00:09:13]Uh it only had a few foreign leaders who chose to attend alongside uh Putin.

[00:09:20]I counted five that were there. So, you know, this this was a non-Victory Day.

[00:09:26]It was at least it was non-Victory Day in the sense of where Russia is with Ukraine.

[00:09:31]Uh it's [clears throat] not a defeat day, but it certainly was not a moment of triumph in Red Square.

[00:09:37]And I think Zelenskyy and Ukraine at the end of it could say, "Look, not only in terms of what they've done with the counterattacks, but how they have capitalized on this politically, they had their own mini Victory Day over the weekend."

[00:09:52]Also, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin probably for the first time uh mm addressed President Zelenskyy as uh Mr. uh Zelenskyy. It's interesting that uh during the first months of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he insulted uh President Zelenskyy. Do you feel Do you sense any kind of uh change, shift in Putin's uh approach, Putin's stance uh uh with Zelenskyy, his view of Zelenskyy?

[00:10:26]Not really. I mean, it it you know, he didn't call him President Zelenskyy. He called him Mr. Zelenskyy. So, you know what that means. It's the same way that I'll you know, I'm not Vladimir Putin. I just have a website where I always refer to Donald Trump as Donald Trump, never as President Trump. I know exactly what I'm doing there.

[00:10:42]Um you know, if Putin is serious about dealing with Zelenskyy as an equal, then he'll agree to the possibility of face-to-face talks with Zelenskyy outside of Russia. You know, that will be [clears throat] the serious signal this taking place. And you have to realize that there were all kinds of other references, as there would be on Victory Day, which is, "Oh, we defeated the Nazis in 1945.

[00:11:05]We're going to defeat the Nazis in Ukraine." So, there's still those types of insults that were that were thrown at Ukraine. Uh Putin's never going to recognize Zelenskyy as an equal uh because he doesn't recognize Ukraine as a country which is the equal to Russia. He recognizes it as something to be conquered, and Zelenskyy is someone who should be forced out of power.

[00:11:27]Also, uh Vladimir Putin uh has said that he could meet President Zelensky uh in a third country, but only in case of final agreements being finalized. Uh, what is your take on this?

[00:11:42]Again, that that's that's the standard language, which is you have to surrender to us. Uh, as I mentioned before, that what the Kremlin has said, not only to Zelensky, but to the Americans, uh, is okay.

[00:11:56]Zelensky wants to come to Moscow, so, you know, we'll do it, but we're not going to meet anywhere in Europe. And of course, the US suspending the talks effectively because of its war in Iran puts that to the side for the moment.

[00:12:08]Um, you know, there's no way that Zelensky or any other Ukrainian leader is going to say to Putin, "Oh, that's right. We'll meet.

[00:12:16]You know, you just come on over to Geneva or you come all over to, uh, to Italy. We'll all have a great time, and then we'll give you to the We'll give you the rest of the Donets region, and we'll keep ourselves weak." It ain't going to happen. So, Daniel, you got to realize, a a lot of what the media chooses to cover in terms of announcements is is for me, it's it's it's that white noise. It's just I've heard this stuff for years.

[00:12:41]And if you get to the reality of it, it's like, "No, I you know, whatever you say, Ms. Zakharova or the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman, the Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov or or or Peskov or Putin, no, I want to know where you are in terms of the territorial issues, the security guarantee issues, the economic issues, including reparations and recovery funds for Ukraine. That's what I want to hear from you. And if you want to put out another statement that effectively says, 'We'll meet you so you can sign surrender documents,' yeah, on your bike, as they as they say in the UK.

[00:13:14]Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said on May 12th that he believes the war between Russia and Ukraine may be nearing its end, and that Moscow and Kyiv are getting closer to a deal.

[00:13:28]What is your take on this? Because this is not the first time when President Trump says that we are really close to a deal between Russia and Ukraine.

[00:13:40]Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when when I when I've said that a lot of statements that are made are white noise that we should push aside cuz I did that 1 minute ago.

[00:13:51]And here's another example of it. Look, Donald Trump's the guy who said on day one of my presidency in January 2025 it will be over. I will have solved this. A deal would be struck. And here we are 15 months later and he's still saying a deal is close. You know, if I had a a euro uh for every time that he had said that I'd be an extremely wealthy guy with a much bigger house.

[00:14:19]Um Trump will always say this. Trump will always say I'm about to end another war because it will be like I don't know, maybe the 50th he's ended. Actually, I think he only claims still eight.

[00:14:30]Um and of course he hasn't really ended a single war during his time and you know, in office while he is actually carrying out one that's not going very well in Iran.

[00:14:39]When I get to the when we get to the point where American officials are sitting down with Ukraine officials and working out how you get Russia to accept a ceasefire on the front lines then I'll be interested. And I'm hoping you're going to ask me later on about something more important than Donald Trump's latest thought bubble. And that is American officials did sit down with Ukraine officials this week.

[00:15:04]And they did talk with Ukraine about drone technology and about drone production.

[00:15:13]That's way more important than what Donald Trump said about a deal or no deal or anything else on his Truth Social timeline that certain US officials are now in negotiations with Ukraine about a military relationship despite the Trump camp having effectively cut off all assistance to Kiev.

[00:15:37]You just mentioned my next question for you about the story reported by CBS News that US and Ukraine are working on defense agreement at center on drone technology and joint drone production.

[00:15:55]How could this influence Ukraine US relations and I I hate to ask you this, but could this shift Trump's view of Zelensky?

[00:16:07]Oh, look, Mr. Trump.

[00:16:10]President Zelensky has a card.

[00:16:12]Now, I'm not sure whether it's a jack or a king or maybe it's the ace of hearts, but it's called drones at a time when the United States has almost depleted its stocks of interceptors uh especially missile interceptors because of the war on Iran and Iran's retaliation.

[00:16:33]We have been discussing this in recent weeks where Zelensky played that card with the Gulf states.

[00:16:39]The United States got very upset. Oh, how could you visit Saudi Arabia? How could you visit Qatar, the UAE? Well, guess what? He could visit because he had something which is a much cheaper form of air defense against Iran than what the US is providing.

[00:16:54]And now because we're in what is an open-ended war in Iran, because the United States has depleted stocks of air defense uh missiles or offensive stocks because most of their missiles have been uh depleted, you can go over and talk to them about drones, not even necessarily for use in the Middle East. You know, what if the United States is preparing for a possible confrontation whether or not it's intended with China or with North Korea. So, that's why the talks take place.

[00:17:27]Now, they are at working level.

[00:17:30]Uh what happens when they reach a higher level? Do we actually expect an agreement to be announced by the US Defense Secretary popgun Pete Hegseth?

[00:17:38]Probably not. Do we expect Trump to announce an agreement? Probably not.

[00:17:42]But, these are the institutional links that matter. One day Donald Trump will be gone.

[00:17:47]Or one day he may be limited in what he can do in office. And when that day occurs, hopefully sooner rather than later, then the institutions, the American military, the intelligence services, uh the diplomats can work with Ukraine in terms of how do we have a cooperative defense security arrangement. And I have to tell you, I'm going to be watching very carefully as to whether the American position on security guarantees for Ukraine shifts.

[00:18:14]They had been saying in recent months, "You can only get security guarantees if you give up the rest of Donetsk to Russia, the Donetsk region."

[00:18:26]Now, Ukraine can say, "If you want to work with us on these lovely drones that you might need, we would like to keep this lovely part of Donetsk that we need as well, as well as getting your commitment to our security." Let's see if it plays out that way.

[00:18:42]That's really a interesting take. I hope someone from President Zelensky's office will take and use your valuable advice on how to manage Trump's guys and his negotiating team.

[00:18:56]Let's also also cover Iran because US President Donald Trump is seriously considering uh possible resuming of combat operations against Iranian regime as he uh, feels humiliated, embarrassed by uh Iranian most latest response toward his peace offer. What is your assessment of the stage of negotiations and Trump's plan to to strike back to hit Iran again?

[00:19:30]Well, let's let's start with the military situation.

[00:19:33]>> [sighs] >> Well, what had it been probably just over a week ago and the American officials were going to the media and saying, "Oh, he's he's considering those military options.

[00:19:44]There could be we could resume air strikes or we could maybe even ground troops could be going in. Oh, we could do that.

[00:19:52]We could do it." And what actually happened is that there was a slight uptick on the American blockade of Iranian ports where they boarded a few Iranian ships and where you had a bit of a skirmish where the Iranians fired on some vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The Americans fired back on a couple of Iranian vessels, you know, and and then everybody talked it back down because for all that bluster that Trump's making and his officials are making about returning to military operations, they've got a serious issue here.

[00:20:22]Um the 60 days are long gone. We're now uh, in around what about day 73, day 74 of this [clears throat] US-Israel war on Iran and on Lebanon.

[00:20:41]And the reason why that's important is is after 60 days the US is supposed the Trump administration are supposed to go to Congress to get authorization under the War Powers Act. And there were some Republicans, not just Democrats, who were saying, "Look, we're going to require this."

[00:20:54]So, what the Trump administration's been having to say is even as we've had these skirmishes in the Strait of Hormuz, where both sides have fired on each other, they've had to say, "Oh, no, no, no, no, it's still a ceasefire. It's still a ceasefire." Because the moment that they go back to to sustained air strikes, and especially if they have ground attacks or ground forces that attack, then Congress has to be in on the game. So, they've got themselves boxed in.

[00:21:21]And that takes us back to where we are on both the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and then the talks. And the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is the Americans don't control the Strait.

[00:21:31]I don't care what the Defense Secretary of State Texas said yesterday, because he doesn't tell the truth. The Americans don't control the Strait. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:21:42]And as long as Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, then the Trump administration will be under pressure to go back to negotiations because of the oil, the gas prices, the effects on other commodities, including fertilizers.

[00:21:58]The question just simply is, when do we get back to that second set of talks?

[00:22:03]Weeks after the first set took place.

[00:22:06]The status on that is that you had an Iranian 14-point proposal, which says, "Let's talk about the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:22:14]We will talk about an arrangement for security in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a long-term ceasefire.

[00:22:23]Long-term ceasefire.

[00:22:25]Then we'll talk about our nuclear program."

[00:22:28]And the Trump administration is saying, "No, no, no, no, no, no. We have to talk about your nuclear program first before there's a long-term ceasefire."

[00:22:37]Which side blinks first?

[00:22:39]Or is there some way to square those two positions?

[00:22:43]And right now, having just come back from the United States, I'll just tell you this, that a lot of people were in Florida, where I was visiting my mother, they don't talk about Iran that much.

[00:22:56]They don't talk about Israel or Lebanon.

[00:22:59]They don't even talk really that much about Donald Trump in terms of specific issues, but they do talk about gasoline prices. And I was paying 50% more for gasoline than I did 3 months ago. So is everyone else in Florida. So is everyone else in the United States. And that domestic pressure I think will mean that the Trump folks will have to compromise and go back into the talks while they continue this saber-rattling that that doesn't really give them a military option to get regime surrender.

[00:23:30]US President Donald Trump is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Beijing.

[00:23:37]Um US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was wearing the same uh um sports suit as Nicholas Maduro did.

[00:23:47]Uh I I I trust you you saw that photos on X and other social media platforms.

[00:23:54]Uh Don't you Don't you see Marco Rubio as so-called rising star in Trump's administration who could uh try to become the next US president?

[00:24:10]Oh, I'm sure Marco Rubio would like to be US president. So would J.D. Vance, the vice president. So that gives us this internal political dimension of what takes place here. But the question here is is is how does that connect to the wider issues we're talking about?

[00:24:26]What Marco Rubio is doing by the way is he's not saying a word really about Iran. He's leaving that to others, including J.D. Vance when Vance either because he wanted to be there or he was forced to um led the Americans in that first set of talks with the Iranians a few weeks ago in Pakistan.

[00:24:44]You have Rubio referring back to Venezuela cuz that's a win, right? It's a win because let me just remind everybody they kidnapped the Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro um who may or may not go through a trial.

[00:24:57]Whether or not you want to call it a show trial is up to you in the United States. But meanwhile, the rest of the Venezuelan regime is still in place. It's not like they actually put in a government and they've got democracy elections and a democracy in Venezuela.

[00:25:12]Uh they did get the regime to accommodation, if you will.

[00:25:16]That's Rubio's play, right? Don't want to talk about Iran, talk about Venezuela. Uh JD Vance right now, after having led the US in those talks a few weeks ago in Pakistan, has gone really quiet. Because things aren't going well with Iran. He has opposed that war in Iran. He doesn't want to get stuck with it.

[00:25:37]So Rubio doesn't want to get stuck with the war in Iran. Vance doesn't want to get stuck with the war in Iran. But guess what? The Trump administration is stuck with the war in Iran. So we can talk all we want to about Rubio and Vance trying to get Trump's favor, trying to make their play for the 2028 election. But in 2026, no one can escape Iran.

[00:26:01]And here's the fundamental. If things don't go well in Iran and they don't go well for the US economy and things continue not not to go well in Iran in the Middle East and the US economy over the next 2 years, you won't have a President Vance, you won't have a President Rubio, because that president will be coming from the Democratic Party.

[00:26:21]It was pleasure to speak with you today about the next president elections. This topic was another podcast with you.

[00:26:30]Really interesting topic to discuss. And if you did enjoy our session today, please subscribe to my YouTube channel World at Stake, where we, with collaboration with Professor Lucas' YouTube channel, post these interesting videos discussing political and military affairs. And thanks, Professor Lucas, for your time and glory to Ukraine.

[00:26:52]Glory to the heroes. Thank you so much, Daniel.