DW P.  

Producer and Film Director @ Ukraine Story | Documentary Filmmaker | Attorney | Journalist |

• Ukraine Story
• George Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School

United States  Contact info

May 12, 2025

Zelensky the Wise

“I will be there. Personally.”

President Zelensky is heading to Turkey, prepared to confront the Prince of Darkness —a moment reminiscent of the Archangel Michael contending with Satan over sovereign territory (the body of Moses) as described in the Book of Jude.

Whether Putin attends or not, Zelensky will be present, ready to look his adversary in the eye. Conventional wisdom suggested he would decline the meeting given Russia’s refusal of an unconditional 30-day ceasefire—an initiative backed by Ukraine, the EU, and the U.S.

But Zelensky sees the broader battlefield. He understands his opponent. By accepting the invitation, Zelensky calls Putin’s bluff and seizes the upper hand. Putin now faces an unwelcome choice: refuse to attend a summit he initiated, or meet with Zelensky on neutral ground as the leader of a sovereign state, under the scrutiny of the global stage.

The optics are bad for Putin. Positive for Zelensky.

Until recently, it was unlikely that Putin contemplated having such a meeting. It contradicts his own propaganda—that Zelensky is illegitimate, that Ukraine is not a real country. To share a table with the Ukrainian president is to acknowledge the sovereignty Putin denies. It’s a shift that reveals the Kremlin’s mounting insecurity.

Zelensky, by contrast, has been preparing for this moment for years. Even the Oval Office debacle served as training for this high-stakes diplomacy.

The announcement came today, shortly after yet another tone-deaf post from the President of the United States on his Truth Social platform. What is crystal clear is that the White House has lost authority. Katherine Leavitt may continue to spin Donald J. Trump as the “negotiator-in-chief,” but after promises broken, lack of clarity, abusive behavior, and ineffectiveness, the world sees it differently. Trump has emerged as a man who caries a big stick and must be coddled, but not much of a peacemaker or deal maker.

Now enters Zelensky—a leader with more cards in his hands than Trump realizes. Zelensky not only plays his hand with self control, but he does so with courage and savvy. He is ready to be a valiant David before a power-drunk Goliath.

Thursday’s summit is a win-win for Ukraine’s president. If Putin fails to appear, it’s a message even Trump will struggle to ignore. If he does show, his performance will likely consist of maximalist demands cloaked in performative diplomacy—an obvious ploy to shift blame for any breakdown onto Ukraine.

Zelensky’s position will be simple – unconditional across the board ceasefire. Putin will claim openness to a cease fire, but bog down the discussion in poison pill requirements as a pretext for blaming Zelensky for failure of the peace talks.

Both men will keep their cool. Putin will be condescending. Zelensky will be like Maximus before Commodus in the final scene of Gladiator – clear, unemotional, and quietly signaling the inevitable – the age of Russian boasting will end.

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DW. P comments on his own post :

Is there risk here? – Much risk. Of course. Things could go sideways. But if Zelensky did not call Putin’s bluff, it would have been worse. Zelensky has now gained the upper hand. Furthermore, this meeting is not about a peace deal. That’s a farce. If anyone is looking to this meeting to even accomplish a real ceasefire, their optimism surpasses mine on a great day. This is about optics. It’s the next step in an international PR battle with vast implications, which Ukraine was previously losing, and presently is gaining the upper hand.

Zelensky the Wise. His words today:

“I’ll be there. Personally.”
“We expect a full ceasefire, starting now.”
“I hope Putin doesn’t find excuses this time.”

Valeri Terentev

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin in Turkey on Thursday for talks.”

Moscow owns Trump altogether. Yet we are lucky that Trump and his people are totally incompetent: they don’t understand that Putin’s most fundamental demand is that there could be no negations between Putin and the president of Ukraine or even between the foreign offices of Russia and Ukraine because Moscow does not recognise the sovereignty of any Ukrainian government over Ukraine.

Putin has not proposed it. He said he would resume the 2022 talks, nothing else. Back then, he sent several nobodies to meet with high-level delegation from Kyiv. From the level of delegation from Moscow and the drafts they came up with we can be sure that Moscow was never serious about negotiations, nor was it willing to achieve any peace.

Those papers were that Ukraine must have capitulate by disarming itself, and by submitting to Moscow’s demand about their Constitution, laws, foreign and domestic policies, government staffing, elections, territories i.e. their sovereignty — they demanded full control over Ukraine.

That was basically the only reason why Ukraine did not continue those negotiations, which lasted from Feb 2022 to July 2022.

The last thing Putin wants right now is pictures of him and Zelensky shaking hands. That was not what his suggestion about negotiations in Turkey on Thursday was about. What Russia wants is low-level negotiations that can go on for months and delay Western decision making.
https://bsky.app/profile/thestudyofwar.bsky.social/post/3lowlwyg2tc24

Lars H.

Russia will send their minister of Culture again, and again they will demand random shit from Ukraine that they know Ukraine wont do. this way they can delay the proces again, claiming they want peace. Here is what Europe should do – sanction Russia again and increase military support for Ukraine again.

Patel Prochan

The problem of Western people and Western politicians in general is that they believe in “diplomacy” and “diplomatic solutions”.
It is a result of peaceful and civilised Western lifestyle since 1945.
Putin wants to break this system of peace in Europe, and Putin uses methods non-understandable by Westerners.
Putinists don’t accept “peaceful dialogue”, but brute force and curses.
If you wanna successful negotiations with Russians/Putinists – then use curses and force!

Martin Horsford

Pavel Prochan never a truer comment Pavel, that still the West fails to grasp … agonisingly exasperating ! This attitude has endured for eight centuries, and Europe and Washington still remain oblivious ignorant or uninterested.

Liubym Gerasymenko, FCCA, MIM •

I think Zelensky will be calling bluff of 𝘁𝘄𝗼 partners-in-crime: Kremlin Gremlin and his Agent Orange. If Khuilo doesn’t show up, one more door will close on Trump’s relentless attempts to bail out while blaming Ukraine for “unwillingness to negotiate” after his attempts to force Ukraine’s capitulation failed.

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Mother’s Day in Ukraine

After three years of full scale invasion, numerous interviews, studies and observations, I have reached the following conclusions:

First, no major power on Earth has more disregard for the value of mothers than the Russian Federation. Not even the Islamic regimes with their abusive treatment of women. No nation rapes, tortures, murders and executes mothers on the scale or with the horrific barbarity as Russia. None. Not one comes close. And they have patterned this behavior for at least a century, as we have been reminded this week of the greatest mass rape event in recorded human history – close to two million girls and mothers raped and often murdered by Russians in 1945. The present scope of sexual violence and murderous treatment of women by Russian invaders in Ukraine alone, makes them the scourge of humanity.

Second, no nation has learned the value of defending mothers and children on Earth as the people of Ukraine. At a time when Russian war criminals have created an environment where Ukraine has the highest mortality rate and the lowest birthrate in the world, the defense of women and children is not only a cultural priority rooted in faith and morality, it is existential.

With this in mind, happy Mother’s Day to the heroic mothers of Ukraine.

You have endured much and sacrificed more. You are heroes to the free world. We honor you this day.

Below is a special Mother’s Day image taken by my friend, the great Ukrainian photographer, Anna Senik.