Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a press conference in Oslo, Norway on Monday.CORNELIUS POPPE/AFP/Getty Images
Michael Bociurkiw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and founder of the World Briefing report on Substack.
There are moments in war when the balance shifts favourably not by design, but by circumstance. For Volodymyr Zelensky – a man once accused by Donald Trump of having “no cards to play” – this may be one of them.
As Iranian-made drones streak across Ukrainian skies, an unexpected opportunity has emerged thousands of kilometres away in the Gulf: the very states now seeking protection from those same weapons are turning to Ukraine for answers. Through battlefield necessity, Kyiv has developed hard-earned expertise in countering Iran’s drone warfare – expertise that is suddenly in demand in a region that, until now, has often hedged its bets, welcoming Russian capital, tourists and oligarchs even as the war in Ukraine raged. The question is whether Mr. Zelensky will seize this moment – not just as a wartime innovator, but as a geopolitical dealmaker – and leverage Ukraine’s newfound value into meaningful pressure on countries that have, for too long, kept one foot in Moscow’s orbit.
What happens next, as the war grinds into its fifth year, will help determine whether Mr. Zelensky is truly the right man for the moment – or a leader out of his depth.
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Much will hinge on whether a long-discussed €90-billion loan from the European Union, backed by frozen Russian assets – supposedly made easier by the defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, a longtime opponent of aid to Kyiv – finally materializes.
If it does not, his government’s room to manoeuvre will narrow sharply. With a global energy crunch driving up the cost of fuel and other essential goods at home, the pressures on Ukraine’s wartime economy – and on the political resilience of its leadership – are only set to intensify. And with roughly €60-billion earmarked to help Kyiv scale up its defence industrial base and procure military equipment, the importance of that cash can hardly be overstated.
Even though it was Russia that initiated the war and has committed war crimes across Ukraine on an industrial scale, pressure is nonetheless mounting on Mr. Zelensky to bring the conflict to an end. Yet there are signs he may be maturing into the role of wartime statesman: stepping off the treadmill of leaders eager to curry favour with Donald Trump and instead recalibrating toward more pragmatic alliances.
That pivot should extend beyond urging Gulf states to exert real pressure on Moscow; it should also mean re-engaging Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey as a primary interlocutor between Kyiv and Moscow. After all, Turkey hosted early rounds of Ukraine-Russia talks in 2022 and has a direct stake in Black Sea security. In a fractured diplomatic landscape – where countries such as Pakistan have stepped in to broker sensitive negotiations in the Middle East – the case for experienced, regionally invested mediators is stronger than ever, particularly when contrasted with the often ad hoc, transactional approach emanating from negotiators plucked from Mr. Trump’s inner circle. (Mr. Zelensky has criticized Trump frontmen Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for having “spent too much time” with Mr. Putin and other Kremlin insiders).
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Here on the streets of Odesa, a grand port city built by many nations and a vital gateway for grain that feeds global markets, the grinding stagnation of war is impossible to ignore. You do not have to walk far to see buildings – many UNESCO-protected – scarred or shattered by Russian drones and missiles. Countless residents have fled abroad, businesses have shuttered, and the vitality and energy that defined the early months of the war have palpably ebbed. Increasingly, those who remain – traumatized by the randomness of the strikes – tell me the same thing: no inch of Ukraine feels safe any more.
Set against this reality is a brutal asymmetry. Russia’s war machine continues to be fed – by the wounded sent back to the front, by foreign recruits, and by the sheer depth of a country able to absorb staggering losses.
Ukraine cannot.
It does not have the same reserves of personnel, nor the luxury of time. That is why Mr. Zelensky must now pull every available lever – diplomatic, economic and strategic. It will take conviction, creativity and a relentless ability to build unlikely coalitions to turn the tide. Countries that are now benefiting from Ukrainian battlefield know-how – particularly in countering the very threats devastating its cities – should be pressed to move beyond quiet co-operation and take a clearer stand. Because from where I stand, on the streets of a battered but unbroken Ukraine, the question is no longer abstract: it is how much longer the country can endure without a decisive change in the balance.