As Donald Trump intervenes to protect Russia’s oil refineries, Ukraine plays the few cards it has left.

Ukrainians have gotten used to awful news. But even by their standards, the past several days have felt dismal. Russian missile strikes are pounding Ukrainian cities relentlessly. Donald Trump announced a deal last week to buy Russian diesel fuel. Then came reports about disruptions in U.S. support to Ukraine, including the Starlink communication system. Together, these developments have caused alarm in Kyiv on a scale rarely seen since the start of the war.

The only letup in the gloom appeared on Friday, when Ukrainians had a chance to imagine their tormentor, Vladimir Putin, aboard his presidential plane, seething as it circled over Moscow, unable to land in his own capital. A swarm of Ukrainian drones had forced the closure of the city’s airports that day—all four of them—as Putin flew home from a trip to Turkmenistan. His plane, known as the Flying Kremlin, does not appear to have been the target. “It was purely coincidental,” a military officer familiar with the operation told me. “Just a matter of chance.”