Putin Doesn't Need Victory? Portnikov on Russia's True Goals and a Scenario the World Is Not Ready For

"They're Not Going Anywhere": Avdiivka, the Graham Act and the Language of Force

In the spring we talked about geopolitical shifts. Let's start with the US and Trump: a few weeks ago he said a lot of positive things about Ukraine, and now everything has changed again. How should this be perceived?

I'll start with global patterns. It is symbolic that we are at LEM Station on Lem Square: one of his later books was once read on nearly every LOT airplane. Several decades ago he wrote that the development of IT, AI and bioengineering would lead to a crisis of civilizations, to people without values at the top, and to the triumph of a lumpenized population. Lem was always a pessimist, but it is strange to expect anything else from a person who survived the Lviv pogrom and communism. Now we are living in this.

The latest elections in the US and other countries, including Ukraine, are not a contest of ideas, values and common sense, but a triumph of IT and the money with which they are bought. The scale is extremely serious. It was enough for a Ukrainian drone to hit not even the main Yandex data center – and the social media landscape became completely different from what we had gotten used to over the decades. If the data centers of Russia and China fell silent, and Musk's money, which he earns by cooperating with the US administration and invests in its own functioning, disappeared, we would see a different world.

We live in a matrix, and Trump is a vivid embodiment of its victory: a person without values or views, with a thirst for profit, ready to change his interests within 24 hours for its sake. It is as if he stepped into the Oval Office from Soviet caricatures in "Krokodil" and "Perets". We laughed at the primitive "Uncle Sam" of Soviet propagandists because we did not see such people in America. But in a test tube of new IT, such a figure was bred, made president, and a huge number of people were made to believe that his success would improve their lives. In reality, it only gets worse and, spoiler, will keep getting worse. It is worse for us, because it is bad when US influence weakens, but it is what it is.

Trump has been against Ukraine from the first day in politics and has tried to stop aid. The Javelins were provided only under pressure from a Congress with a Democratic majority. We still hope that changes in Congress will increase aid, because Trump will have to reckon with it, unlike now.

In his first term he sought agreements with Putin, while the team he was forced to reckon with pulled him in every direction. What they talked about is unknown: only a Kremlin interpreter was at the meetings, without a White House interpreter. Later, the no-longer-president Trump blocked Biden's aid in Congress: House Speaker Mike Johnson simply did not put it to a vote, and Democrats lacked the votes to overrule this. We lost Avdiivka – a direct result of the activity of Trump, not-president.

Later he threw tantrums at Zelensky in the Oval Office, looking for a reason to refuse, and tried to derail the minerals deal, because he understood that after signing he would not be able to withdraw support. Part of the team literally forced him to help, while they persuaded us (including Senator Lindsey Graham) to sign agreements in order to knock Trump's trump cards out of his hands for refusals.

Now a new stage. After the Graham Act was adopted, everyone here was dancing with joy. Why? Could the president who has already lost the tariff war with China impose sanctions on the PRC? Without this, talk about punishing buyers of Russian oil does not matter: other buyers are much smaller and do not affect Russia's budget. Moreover, Trump signed the law in an extremely restrained way: without loud ceremonies or journalists, just published a photo, unlike the usual show.

So nothing new, although there is progress. The last time Trump realized he could stop aid, the Pentagon under Hegseth openly announced the cessation of intelligence and weapons supplies (back then Biden's package was still in effect). Now they are concealing it: they say intelligence was not stopped, and will say they did not slow down Starlink. They behave like saboteurs on a mission: quietly doing something and not confessing. But this cannot last long.

What could change?

Either they will say, "We are stopping everything" (but they will not muster the courage – midterm elections are in a few days), or they will return to normal. They're not going anywhere. Everyone says: "You can't offend Trump, you have to do everything he says, or he will get angry." No, this works differently. Like Putin, Trump understands only the language of force and the risk of losing. If you fear him – he will trample you. All European leaders have already danced before him, and the NATO Secretary General even performed an acrobatic trick. And so? Now Trump is holding meetings on NATO's future without the leaders of the countries that pay the defense spending he demanded, because they are next to Russia. He spat on this money – this is a pretext to break up the Alliance. Just as Putin demands the impossible so that we refuse and he can legitimize the continuation of the war, Trump invents conditions that, in his view, partners will not fulfill, so he can say: "We don't need NATO." And when they do fulfill them, he ignores the performers and says the same thing.

What do we need? First, to survive until November 3, 2026: then a new political era will begin, and this is important. If there is a Democratic majority in Congress, our common task is to work with it to force the administration to act in the national interests of the US. But if Trump does not recognize the election results, a civil war in the US is possible. Remember the storming of the Capitol: I saw it on a screen in a café when a colleague said: "Look, some people are seizing the Capitol." I did not want to see it, I replied that it was some kind of fake, and went on drinking coffee. Only 15 minutes later did I realize that I had to pull myself together, because it was real.

A World of Three Men and War Against Europe

If this is a purposeful policy dating back to his previous term, what is his ultimate goal?

To divide the world among three strong men: Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping. Why he would need this world if in 2029 he leaves office is completely unclear. But in his fantasies he may not leave at all: this person lives in a world where power may never end, the next president will be Trump Jr., and anything at all may be possible. Recently he created the "Board of Peace" and said he would be its lifetime chairman, with the US president joining it as his secretary. So why wouldn't he work out options for keeping power after 2029? This may not happen, but he may think so.

In his world there are three strong states, and the rest carry out their will. Canada is a US state, let it obey Trump. Ukraine is a region on the outskirts of Russia, let it obey Putin. What is there to discuss? The idea is simple, like the US president's diapers, if he wears them, of course.

Is it possible that such Trumps will appear in Europe? Marine Le Pen has already stated that if she wins, she will not support Ukraine militarily.

Regarding Europe, the interests of Russia, the US and China completely coincide. Russian officials constantly say how bad the EU is: it strangles national governments, prevents Russia from trading with them, and the European Commission and von der Leyen are agents of global capital. The US National Security Strategy states that the main threat to Europe and its cooperation with the US is transnational organizations like the EU. This is the officially adopted course of this administration. China would also gladly work with each national government separately.

This troika made incredible efforts for Britain to leave the EU. It was a real geopolitical catastrophe of the 21st century for both sides, which many still do not understand. Since Brexit, Britain has been in permanent political crisis: a seventh prime minister, the two largest parties in crisis, radicalization, and economic problems. On voting day, Brexiteers said: «You cannot imagine how Britain will flourish without migrants and European dictates. No one will tell us how to live». I don't know whether you have recently been to London or Manchester and seen the migrants. I won't even discuss this nonsense; the results are clear.

Had Britain remained in the EU, the influence of common-sense countries in Europe would have been much stronger. To keep it in the Union, others would have had to listen to it, so the EU's anti-Russian position would also have been much more serious. As it is, we have Britain's support, but it is politically isolated from Europe.

Perhaps a new security architecture will emerge between these countries separately from the EU? And could Britain ever return?

Right now both the American administration and the Kremlin are openly working to destroy the EU. One of the first steps is technological and financial assistance to the ultra-right across the continent. No one hides this either: Vance, Rubio, and Musk speak in European capitals with right-populist manifestos, spending money and political resources. Bots, sabotage, and inflating migration crises are the yeast on which the authority of the «Alternative for Germany» and politicians like Le Pen grows. This is real external influence.

In 2022, before the invasion, I said on air: «I am very afraid that a flood of millions of refugees from Ukraine may lead to a migration crisis on the scale of Syria's and strengthen the far right in Europe». Fortunately, it did not happen then, but it is happening now. Current strikes on Ukraine are also calculated for a new wave of migration and an artificial crisis: supposedly Ukrainians are being received without the enthusiasm of 2022, so let's try sending them there once more. This is a real danger.

Plus, it is a loss of people. Business feels this very strongly.

And it will continue to feel it. This will not stop, because it is also part of this story. Destroying the European project is an important objective of right- and left-populists, and of forces of external influence in the Washington – Moscow – Beijing axis. You can't even imagine how much money is being spent on this, and not only by Americans and Russians. When you see a Ukrainian expert on TV who wisely explains: «China is interested in ending the war and is looking for political mechanisms, and our government cannot achieve serious dialogue with Beijing», know that not a single yuan was spent on him in vain. All the Russian rubles that went to support the Ukrainian pseudo-elite have been replaced with Chinese yuan. The fact that he receives it all in dollars anyway makes no difference.

«The decision in favor of freedom is a decision in favor of war»

Around 1990, from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada, Dmytro Pavlychko asked Margaret Thatcher to open the British Embassy in Kyiv. She replied with a smile that dependent countries have no such right. Thirty-five years later we have not only an embassy that actively supports Ukraine, but also the king's office in Lviv. Does this mean that in a short time, especially in recent years, our subjectivity has made a quantum leap?

Thatcher was telling the truth: one must start not with an embassy, but with one's own subjectivity. If it exists, an embassy will follow; if not, no embassy will help. By the way, back then we already had a full-fledged mission of the Ukrainian SSR at the UN, with its own office and permanent representative. Everything was as in sovereign states, except sovereignty and the ability to make their own decisions. So her answer was sober.

Much that then seemed like nonsense now looks like forecasts that came true. Recall George H. W. Bush's speech in the Verkhovna Rada in August 1991 calling to support the renewed Union with Gorbachev. It is still cited as a sign of geopolitical short-sightedness, and at the time it was treated very critically. Seeing drafts of this speech in Moscow, I told Bush's team: «It would be a huge mistake if he proclaims this. When Ukraine becomes independent, the speech will look strategically unfounded». I meant the coming years and did not think the GKChP putsch would accelerate everything so much. I was told that by then Bush would no longer be president and it would not matter. No one expected that everything would happen exactly this way.

But what guided Bush? Relying on the experience of Yugoslavia and extrapolating the relations between Serbia and Croatia onto Russia and Ukraine, he said that if Ukraine became independent, great wars would be inevitable. For states like Yugoslavia or the USSR, the most dangerous conflict is between the two first subjects, while conflicts between the metropole and small republics create an impression of stability. The long crisis between Serbia and Kosovo, events in Georgian autonomies, and Transnistria did not look like a big war; Karabakh was perceived as an ethnic clash between two peoples. But the 1991 war between Serbia and Croatia tore Yugoslavia apart and spilled over into Bosnia, into a conflict of Serbs, Croats and Muslims. It was a complete catastrophe. Likewise, only with Russia's war against Ukraine did everyone understand what the world will look like and what awaits Europe. So Bush gave an absolutely correct deferred forecast: independence happened during his presidency, and the war happened when he was no longer president.

Had this happened immediately, his warnings about nationalist sentiments in Ukraine, and with them the cause of this war, would have been recognized as a brilliant prediction. This is the essence of the Russian approach: they began a great war for the «final solution of the Ukrainian question» and the destruction of our state as soon as they saw that Ukrainians want to live in their own national-state paradigm and make an independent geopolitical choice, rather than be a limitrophe of the Union and a renamed Soviet republic. When a country wants to act on its own, not by dictate of the metropole, this is essentially nationalism.

We simply wanted Bush's forecast to prove false, but it was right. With such forecasts, people cannot be kept from wanting to be free, although they often do not understand: the decision in favor of freedom is a decision in favor of war. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which could not be resolved otherwise than by war and the mutual destruction of two neighboring peoples, really began on August 24, 1991, when it was clearly said: Ukraine and Russia will be two different states. All its preconditions were laid then.

I understood this already then and tried to prevent it. I was the only publicist in the post-Soviet space who wrote a major article against the bizarre idea of «Russia's independence from the USSR». In the Moscow «Nezavisimaya Gazeta» I argued that the RF should create a renewed Union with those who want to remain with it and did not proclaim independence: Belarus and the countries of Central Asia (except Uzbekistan). This would be a huge platform for a renewed Union. And we (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan), who denounced the Union Treaty, will go our own way. You in your state create a renewed Union, and we will have good relations with you, as with a Union. We left, you stayed, everything is normal. From whom are you declaring independence?

After this article, Yeltsin met with me and named three reasons. The first was to get rid of Gorbachev, who was hindering reforms (now we see which). The second was so that Russian republics that wanted to leave the RF and become union republics would have nowhere to go; this led to two Chechen wars, the carpet bombing of Grozny and the deaths of thousands of people. About the third he said: «It is the most important. With Ukraine I am president of a European state; without it, of an Asian one, and I do not want to be, and will not be, president of such a state».

This was still before December 1, 1991, when Ukraine was being pressured into being drawn into a renewed Union. But already on August 24, Yeltsin's press secretary Voshchanov declared: "We have no claims against former Union republics that declare independence as long as they are in union with us, and we reserve the right to claims if they leave such a union." Everything was said right away, when we had not yet managed to print the Act of Independence. Only until 2019 did Russians have the illusion that they would take Ukraine by political means: even when Ukrainian-minded people suddenly broke into power and staged a rebellion (2004, 2014), Moscow took revenge (2010, 2019). Yet the understanding that the 2019 revenge was not like the 2010 one, and that, quoting Putin, "Zelensky got scared of the nationalists," predicted everything we live in. And we would have been living this way long ago, if they had not lived in illusions for over thirty years.

Russia needs land, not people

They decided to destroy us, realizing that we will never be with them.

When you say "we," don't overestimate yourself. Russians need Ukrainian territory, and our population is to them like a fifth leg to a hare. They have "one Siberia is unbroachable! And prisons, and people!.. What's there to count!" – only, in Siberia there is no one to count: the Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern federal districts together account for only 20% of the Russian population. Everyone lives where they have always lived – between Vladimir, Suzdal and Moscow. But the territory makes them the largest country in the world and allows them to ramble about a tunnel between Alaska and Chukotka.

And to be a geopolitical player in Europe, they need Ukrainian land: the closer their missiles are to European targets, the more significant their role on the continent. Civilizationally, they have created nothing but fear, which also needs to be vented somewhere. One thing is a bandit from a working-class settlement: it is unknown whether he will ride an electric train to you, especially if between it and your station you place border guards and police, and he will travel only on an internal route. And it is quite another matter when he seizes the station itself, which for Putin is Ukraine.

The expert club "Your City" was launched with the support of the Robert Bosch Foundation; the meetings are supported by the company blago, and the partner of this event was the Western Ukrainian office of the European Business Association.

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