A New Arm of the Kremlin

As Trump’s gaslighting goes global

Credit: Getty Images

You may not have heard about it over the weekend, but a short statement by the Kremlin spokesperson released on Sunday left me almost unbelieving. I had to triple-check the quote, which said:

“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”

– Dmitry Peskov, Press Secretary for Vladimir Putin

Let that sink in. A spokesman for a murderous dictator says that American and Russian visions now align.

Of all the things to worry about in a second Trump administration, a radical restructuring of U.S.–Russia relations at the expense of an 80-year alliance with the democracies of Europe seemed among the least likely.

But here we are.

In one week, Donald Trump has effectively scrapped decades of U.S. foreign policy and upended European geopolitics in the process. This leaves the United States and most of the rest of the free world more vulnerable than they have been since World War II.

A guiding force of U.S. foreign policy, including its policy toward Russia, has traditionally been to protect freedom and democracy, America’s founding principles. That through line has been usurped by Trump’s desire to cozy up to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who by any measure is a dictator.

After Trump and JD Vance’s stunning Oval Office sucker punch of Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy on Friday, reaction in Moscow was euphoric for the Russians, sobering for us.

One Russian official praised Trump for his “pragmatic, rather than enemy-like approach,” according to The Washington Post.

Trump’s humiliation of Zelenskyy on live television was just the latest “alignment.”

Mimicking Putin, Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator and claimed that he had started the war, when in fact, Putin invaded Ukraine, a sovereign nation.

Trump has said he will not allow Ukraine to join NATO, nor will he give security guarantees to the Ukrainians once the war is over. Putin wants neither.

Trump engaged in talks with Putin about ending the war in Ukraine without Zelenskyy present.

On February 24, Trump ordered his United Nations ambassador to vote against a resolution demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine. The resolution passed easily, but 18 nations voted against it, including Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Syria, and … the United States of America. A new low.

“It’s like attending the funeral of something you have loved your whole life, the United States of America. With a single vote, the highest authority of the country has allied itself with some of the most vile enemies of humanity,” observed Igor Lukes, Boston University professor of international relations and history.

How did we go from referring to the Soviet Union as “the evil empire” to aligning with its successor?

At the end of World War II, the United States was helping to rebuild war-torn Europe while the newly formed Soviet Union was expanding communism to much of the eastern part of the continent, ushering in the Cold War. Because the Soviet Union was our biggest rival militarily, the United States spent trillions of dollars and millions of man-hours to defend the U.S. and other countries against the Soviets and encroaching communism.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations softened but never thawed completely. Then Vladimir Putin took over the Russian presidency in 1999, when Boris Yeltsin resigned.

Putin was democratically elected in 2000. By law, Russian presidents are allowed two six-year terms. So Putin changed the Russian constitution to allow him, and only him, additional terms. (Is there any doubt that Trump savors this fact?)

Putin sank into authoritarianism, illegally trying to expand Russia’s borders by annexing the Crimea and invading Ukraine. U.S. relations became strained to the point of breaking. Then Trump was reelected, and all was not just forgiven but excused.

Trump’s love of Putin might be eclipsed only by his loathing for Zelenskyy. In 2019, Trump was impeached for trying to force Zelenskyy into investigating the Biden family. He blames the Ukrainian president for that humiliation.

Trump doesn’t like that Zelenskyy is popular and considered a true leader and a hero. Zelenskyy’s approval ratings are 13 points higher than Trump’s, and he won the Ukrainian presidency with 73% of the vote to Trump’s 49.8%.

When you come down to it, as with most things involving Trump, you have to follow the money. Trump recently said he is “trying to do some economic development deals” with Moscow. That includes opening up mining of rare earth metals. Just last week Trump tried to strong-arm Zelenskyy into signing over mineral rights worth three to four times what the U.S. has given Ukraine in aid, which by the way was never a loan.

“For the next four years at least, the America you knew is over. The bedrock values, allies and truths America could always be counted upon to defend are now all in doubt — or for sale,” Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times.

Today, United States foreign policy is no longer about saving democracies; it is about extorting them for the benefit of a dictatorial superpower. No wonder the smirking underlings of Putin are celebrating.

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Stay Steady,
Dan