More than eleven years have passed since, in St Peter’s Square, the white “doves of peace” released from the hands of the late Pope Francis found themselves in the claws of a crow and a gull. Remember? Social media exploded: some saw an apocalyptic omen, others a prophecy of the swift triumph of good, because the doves managed to break free, leaving a few feathers behind as a reminder of that anxious instant. How much time has passed since then! Russia has not merely “attacked” – it is trying to wipe Ukraine off the map. No signs have stopped the war, and the endless Telegram “gurus” and astrologers have still not named the exact date when peace will come. What remains, however, are card games.
Donald Trump has often said he views geopolitics “like poker”: some hold strong cards, others weak ones; the main thing is to raise the stakes in time and push the opponent out of the deal. Yet he hardly leads in bluffing when Vladimir Putin sits at the table – Putin expertly shuffles ever-emptier chips while sensing precisely the point beyond which there will be no players left to replace.
It so happened that Ukraine is the single factor where that tidy “gaming” logic collapses. This is neither the glittering Las Vegas casino of swagger and easy money, nor a frost-encrusted Moscow alley where “never-former Chekists” compete in how much they can drink. In both places people try to play cards.
But Ukraine is not a player, because this is no game at all. At stake are the lives of millions, the borders of an independent European state, and beyond that – conscience, universal virtues, the defence of the wronged, justice, the rule of law and a host of words that sound hollow to many American and Russian politicians.
Still, if someone insists on talking about strong cards, here are a few:
- Truth, backed by evidence of genocide and war crimes.
- The resilience of a society that refuses to capitulate for the sake of an illusory “truce.”
- Support from the democratic world – from weapons to sanctions.
Here lies the media paradox: a large share of Americans trust Ukraine more than their own commander-in-chief. Volunteers – with no ethnic or historic ties to Ukraine – fight on our side; many have died for Ukraine. Those who do not fight phone their senators and representatives, demanding continued military and financial aid for a nation that has challenged the world’s most powerful nuclear force and still stands.
When special envoy Steve Witkoff, shaking Putin’s hand in the Kremlin while Ukrainians bleed to death beneath the rubble of apartment blocks, legitimises a criminal on the international stage and quite literally stains Washington with that blood. No matter that he holds no formal office – de facto he plays Secretary of state, steering the White House’s most dangerous portfolios without proper political or diplomatic experience. That turns Donald Trump himself not into an arbiter but into an accomplice, precisely as British columnist Jonathan Freedland describes: “a vandal, an autocrat, a gangster and a fool.”
Thus every clear-minded Ukrainian, wherever they live, feels that to the crow and the gull a bald eagle has suddenly joined – and that is frightening.
Trump’s team, speaking in the name of the American people, offers Ukraine a “peace package” that openly, condescendingly hands Crimea to Putin and lifts sanctions. The foundation of the post-war order – the rule that great powers may not swallow smaller ones – faces a dangerous precedent: accept such a “peace deal” once, and the world opens the door to the same for Taiwan, the Balkans or the Baltics.
America’s “civic religion” has long rested on the narrative of freedom and the protection of the weak. Cooperation with evil “for the sake of good” is not a political “reset”; it is an existential fissure in the American identity itself. In practice, such steps by Trump’s office amount to desertion from the United States’ own moral front. It is self-betrayal – a line that must not be crossed.
Hope without action turns into a narcotic. Ernst Bloch warned us all. Ukrainians will feel safe only when the economy generates enough taxes to support both civilian prosperity and the strongest army in the world.
The Vatican doves escaped the predators’ claws not because someone intervened with prayer, but because they fought for their lives despite wounds and plucked feathers. Eleven years on, watching the face-to-face meeting of Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in virtually the same place, we must conclude: our own resolve matters more than other people’s promises.
And so that hope may cease to be a weakness, let us treat it as an action plan. As for the Vatican birds, we now have five lessons:
- Do not wait for a messiah. No strong ally will save us if we surrender our own positions.
- Demystify the signs. The image of Trump and Zelenskyy – though striking – is only a media frame, not destiny written in the sky.
- Communicate values through facts. Solid argument convinces Congress better than emotional blackmail.
- Keep the focus on law and truth. All of Putin’s “trumps” crumble when Bucha, Izyum and Mariupol are the counter-arguments.
- Remember our own agency. Ukraine is not a “pawn” but a full-fledged frontier of modern civilisation, and that is why the stakes are so high.
About Author:
