The halls of power in Washington and Moscow are buzzing with talk of great power politics and the end of the war against Ukraine. On paper, three years of war have brought little benefit to Vladimir Putin. In exchange for hundreds of thousands of casualties and an economy on the brink, Russia now possesses a chunk of territory in the east of Ukraine. That return hardly compares to the grandiose dream of seeing Russian troops marching triumphant through the streets of Kyiv. However, Donald Trump now seems to be on the verge of handing his Russian counterpart a trove of long-term diplomatic and strategic wins – and a much bigger, spiritual victory.
Trump seems keen to end US support for Kyiv. According to US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at the Ramstein security meeting in Brussels this week, Ukraine’s hope to return to its 2014 borders is “unrealistic” and an “illusionary goal,” Nato membership for Ukraine is all but impossible, and vital weapons deliveries from the US are to stop. Speaking to Vladimir Putin by phone, Trump reiterated this new, hardline stance. American security backing for Ukraine and Europe would cease, leaving the continent to face a belligerent Putin alone.
The reaction in Russia has been unsurprisingly positive. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declared that the Kremlin is “impressed” by the new administration’s attitude. Russia’s state media are staging a carnival that verges on the ecstatic. The newspaper Pravda writes of “optimism” about the discussion between Trump and Putin, even hoping – despite Hegseth’s comments in support of a “robust, strong, and real” alliance – that this might signal the end of Nato itself. Pravda’s tone when covering American presidents is normally somewhere between dismissal and outright mockery, but Trump is welcomed as a man that Russia can work with.
Meanwhile, on the flagship Rossiya-1 channel, a primetime political discussion show – the sort of nightly affair that invites pundits and politicians to spew often repugnant anti-Western propaganda – featured guests who were in a state of baffled exaltation. “Trump is sawing up the Western world,” exclaimed one guest, before the presenter rejoinders: “It’s us that wanted to saw up the Western world, but he decided to do it himself… it’s just astonishing!” Russian patriots see a dream they have held for over three decades on the brink of coming true.
When Vladimir Putin came to power in the closing hours of the last millennium, Russia was wallowing in a state of existential despair and sociocultural emasculation. Between 1991 and 1999, it lost its empire, its economy crashed, and its people – once the wealthiest in the Soviet Union – saw the countries of the former communist bloc accelerating toward the economic security and material comfort enjoyed by Europeans. America, once a peer to fight against, was ascendent in global politics. In 1999, when Nato bombed Serbia (which Moscow saw as part of its Slavic backyard) without consulting the Kremlin, Russian nationalists were devastated. Russia was sidelined and falling behind.
Putin’s promise has always been to return Russia to the world’s top table. Under his leadership, Moscow has aspired to construct a “multipolar world”: one in which Moscow is allowed to control its neighbours by force and in which Washington takes its eastern counterpart seriously. In this world, the Russian empire – and with it, national self-esteem – would be reborn. The “prolonged agony” of the recent past, as Putin put it, would have been worth it.
The contours of any peace deal that emerges in the coming months (one that an apparently furious Ukrainian nation may not agree to) are not so important to Putin as the public face of the new relationship between the Russian president and his American counterpart. And Trump may be giving Putin exactly what he wants.
After all, Trump is not treating Putin like the leader of a failing economy with a severely depleted military trapped in a strategic quagmire in a much smaller neighbouring state. Summing up the two leader’s phone call on his social media network Truth Social, Trump declared that, “We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations.” Shared phone calls to carve up Europe, in-person meetings in Moscow featuring lavish parades and red carpets like the ones rolled out for Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2023, and close collaboration on geopolitical questions do not suggest that Washington is dictating terms. They suggest a relationship of equals.
Trump’s idea of equality, however, extends much further than economics and politics. On Truth Social, he wrote, “We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering, that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many!” Trump dovetails Russia’s and America’s wartime roles – which provide vital national myths for both nations – to suggest the two nations are spiritual equals. Russia and America, intertwined in a history of great power and even greater history, can enter a perpetual “golden age”.
Whether plain impressed or outright astonished by the latest developments, Putin’s supporters today spy a much bigger victory than the feeble territorial gains they have made in Ukraine. Trump is not just giving Moscow a victory today, he is handing Putin the international respect Russians felt was snatched away from them with the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. Since February 2022, Russia’s state media has promised repeatedly that the economic suffering and human loss incurred due to the war against Ukraine would prove worthwhile. If Donald Trump continues to treat Vladimir Putin as a spiritual fellow traveller, many will believe those promises have come true.
[See also: Trump’s hostile takeover of religion]
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