“You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards”
—Donald Trump to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Oval Office, Feb. 2025
“I’m not playing cards. I’m very serious. I’m the president in a war.”
—Zelenskyy’s reply
In that frigid Oval Office exchange earlier this year, President Trump told Ukraine’s wartime president that he had no leverage. No cards. No power — unless the United States would continue to hand it to them.
What Idiot Child Trump didn’t realize was that Zelenskyy had already anticipated this move after the Biden administration left and was replaced by one hostile to Ukraine’s survival as a nation. While Trump saw a desperate leader begging for help, Zelenskyy was preparing to pivot to a redefinition of modern warfare if his largest ally would be abandoning them.
That pivot in silence is what became Operation Spiderweb.
And it wasn’t just a military operation. It was a message — to Russia, to the world, and perhaps most pointedly, to Trump: I don’t need your cards. I’ve built my own deck
The Zelenskyy Doctrine
President Zelenskyy’s doctrine is not just military—it’s cultural. It’s the war of a nation that has had to prove its right to exist over and over again. These are people that will continue to fight and survive whether Trump continues support or not. And now, it’s showing other small or threatened countries — Taiwan, Estonia, Georgia — what survival might look like in the 21st century.
And when he was told by Trump that he “had no cards,” Zelenskyy didn’t flinch.
He built a new deck — and played it to perfection.
