Face to face with Donald Trump

The objectives of Vladimir Putin's “special military operation” were made public shortly after it began and have been repeated many times since then, but the empty phrase “demilitarisation and denazification” can sadly only be laughed at. The war was started with this ostensible aim, but still nobody can explain what these terms mean in relation to Ukraine. When the Russian government had some military failures, from its point of view, and negotiations took place in Istanbul in spring 2022, the whole thing should at least have become a little clearer. At that time, the Russian side demanded that the Ukrainian armed forces should be reduced to a minimum and that pro-Russian parties controlled by Moscow should be allowed to take part in the elections. Ukraine rejected all of this, a move which later sparked some criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Today, it looks as if the Istanbul proposals could have been more favourable for Ukraine. What it now faces after Donald Trump's intervention could be even worse. It is understandable that the demand that it should de facto renounce its own army and submit politically to Russian control was not acceptable to Kyiv. 

A Ukraine that agreed to this would no longer have anything in common with the state that is currently fighting against Russian aggression. Instead, it would have become a satellite of Moscow, a country with limited sovereignty.

Vladimir Putin is clearly not in a position to conquer the whole of Ukraine. Instead, he is trying to bring the whole of Ukraine under his political control through military pressure, particularly in the east of the country. But as logical as this strategy may be from Putin's point of view, it has not worked, even after three years of war.

Russia wants to incorporate conquered regions of Ukraine into its territory and erase all traces of Ukraine's past. It was not long ago that Moscow-controlled Ukrainian political forces could claim anything in Ukraine. The most influential Ukrainian politician with a pro-Russian attitude, Viktor Medvedchuk, a man practically  related to Putin after he became his daughter's godfather, was arrested by the Ukrainian authorities at the beginning of the war. He was later exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners. Today he lives in Russia and writes columns for a small pro-Kremlin media outlet. Ukrainian politicians who oppose Volodymyr Zelenskyi either want to avoid being suspected of being loyal to Moscow again, like former President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Or, like Oleksiy Arestovych, they adopt pro-Russian rhetoric, but are not met with any interest in Moscow. No troops fight for the Russian side under the Ukrainian flag or talk about their future plans for a defeated Ukraine.

If Putin really needs Ukraine - how does he intend to establish a pro-Russian regime there? The relevant conditions are not in place. The Russian government likes to talk about the ‘situation on the ground’ - and judging by this situation, Putin does not need a loyal Ukraine, but what Ukraine is becoming as a result of his actions: a destroyed and economically ruined country full of graves and without infrastructure. The Russian president does not need a satellite state, he needs ruins. A few days before the war began, Vladimir Putin, addressing Ukraine, quoted an infamous Russian saying implying rape: “like it or not, it’s your duty, my beauty”.

The next step will be a new Yalta, a small circle of heads of state who will decide on the division of Europe

This can be seen as sadism or cold-blooded revenge; firstly because Ukraine does not want to be a Russian satellite state, secondly because of its fierce resistance during the war, and thirdly because of the insults that Putin claims to constantly hear from Ukrainians. But even if Putin's relationship with Ukraine seems irrational, there is something coolly calculating in his behaviour. But it is not Ukraine that he is ultimately aiming for. Rather he wants to send a signal to what he considers to be its real master: the West. Basically, every direct contact with the President of the USA is considered a victory by Putin. It is a kind of trophy for him. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed cities just so he can deal with the United States on an equal footing. Even the times when Russia was not a pariah and belonged to the G8 have remained in Putin's memory as cause for offence. Eight heads of state and government met there, but the other seven kept to themselves. From Putin's point of view, those states that are barely visible on the world map never quite trusted Russia.

The basis for Putin's ideas about Russia's role in today's world is his pathological fixation on the year 1945 and the fact that the Soviet Union, together with the victorious Western powers, divided up Europe after the Second World War. The cult of the Soviet victory forms part of national identity in Putin's state and has taken the place of religion. (The poor attendance figures in Orthodox churches undermine the myth of the great piety of Russians). Outsiders might think this cult is just as old as the victory itself, but this is not true. This cult was created from scratch by Putin and differs fundamentally from the Soviet Union's political culture of remembrance, whose relationship to the Second World War was characterised by mourning for those killed and a reluctance to engage in new wars. In the meantime, however, the population's respect for the fighting grandfathers of that time, which Putin instrumentalises for himself, has become the basis for the majority of the population remaining loyal to him and his policies. There is a social consensus that the victory won in 1945 is something sacred, and out of habit, the population agrees with everything else Putin uses to symbolise this victory.

Under Putin, the slogan ‘We can do it again’ became widespread. This means: we can wage a new war to assert Russia's claim to world power, and we will back this up in Ukraine. It also means: we will prove it to the West and, above all, to America. The next step will be a new Yalta, as in 1945, when a small circle of world leaders agreed on the division of Europe. This idea might sound far fetched but is now the subject of hundreds of popular books and films as well as new civic rituals such as wearing the ‘St George's ribbon’ and the annual commemorative march ‘Immortal Regiment’ on the day of the victory over Hitler's Germany. This gives the misunderstanding of 1991 an almost mystical-historical significance. At that time, Russia was one of 15 republics of the USSR to become the legal successor to the Soviet Union. Russia emerged as a sovereign state, just like Ukraine. Vladimir Putin now believes that the other post-Soviet countries are renegade provinces of his state and that he has the right to determine how people live there.

There is no real basis for Russia's global player ambitions

Following the change of power in the USA, there is now likely to be a change in the Ukraine war. President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants to end this war. After three years of radio silence, he has again sought direct dialogue with Vladimir Putin - and the atmosphere has been so friendly that Trump's critics sense an uneasy loyalty to Moscow behind Washington's change of course. But even if they are right, the chances of a friendship are not particularly good. Trump does not understand Putin's historical illusions; in his perception, two rather peripheral Eastern European states are fighting each other in this war. Vladimir Putin, for whom Ukraine is merely a proxy for the USA, sees dialogue with Washington as a chance to return to the times when the USSR was able to share spheres of influence around the world with the USA.

What interest should Trump have in this? Russia will help him neither in the conflict with Canada nor in the dispute over Greenland. There is no material basis for Russian global player ambitions. Despite everything, Russia is nothing more than a province of the former Soviet Union - albeit the largest. It left this union at some point together with Ukraine, but has clung to its perception of itself as a great empire. This contradiction is the basis for the true tragedy of post-Soviet Russia, which is not tied to specific individuals. The whole thing raises the crucial question about Russia's future - namely, what cold shower will force Russia to abandon the illusions of 1991 and become a post-imperial nation state like the RSFSR, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which signed the declaration on the dissolution of the USSR? The defeats inflicted on Russia by the Ukrainian army were the first major setback - but the rest is yet to come.

Translated by Andreas Bredenfeld