

by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
In our first appearance together on Dialogue Works, Nima Alkhorshid opens the discussion of how Russia is taking its fight to President Donald Trump – the best enemy Russia has ever had in the long US war because he is imperialist in ideology, pathological in mentality, and altogether predictable. (He is also 15 centimetres taller than Adolf Hitler.)
As this phase of the war comes out in the open after months of secret negotiations, President Vladimir Putin is obliged to address the revolutionary moment for the country — a 100-year war with the US, according to former president Dmitry Medvedev; the General Staff consensus for a campaign of acceleration, decapitation, and mobilization; and the efforts of the domestic oligarchs to block nationalization and capital controls, and to preserve their economic dominance and political power.
Click to listen to the one-hour podcast.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/
For follow-up and long reads of the Russian and other sources mentioned in the discussion:

“In the first week of his second term in the White House, Donald Trump tried to confuse the whole world. But he can't fool us!” Source: https://t.me/s/medvedev_telegram


See analysis at https://johnhelmer.net/
Moscow sources debate what this episode reveals about Kremlin thinking of Trump. According to one source, “I think they have made the mistake of anticipating Trump positively. They’ve placed bets on him. Thankfully, Trump has brought Putin down to earth. I believe he had come to expect a good dialogue and a sympathetic hearing. On the advice of his many advisors and in his own self-confidence, he has read Trump all wrong. He does not understand that US exceptionalism – with or without race hatred — is still incurable and has afflicted the US left and right beyond cure. So he was kind of crestfallen, as if he was a teenager who had just been stood up by his date at the last minute. Still, he is not going to abuse or insult Trump, and he is not going to walk away from talks.”
Another source: “Public television is the last channel of communication they have with the Americans. During the Obama-Biden years the US Embassy has stopped reporting back anything of what Putin, the Kremlin and the General Staff think, believe, say and do. Their job has been to promote regime change and they spent all their energy on Navalny and the like. So Kremlin now believes — rightly so — that the way to talk to Trump for the time being is through his confidants in the media. They understand that Trump listens to the people his voters listen to. When he gets the CIA, State, DOD, and FBI all cleaned up, the proper channels can start working. But that may or not happen. So the only channels left are Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Judge Napolitano to some extent – they then feed the message to the Fox anchors and podcasters Trump listens to.
Kremlin has decided that Putin talking to camera is the best way to send messages not to confuse Trump. So a very tightly controlled messaging is being done — Putin is talking to Trump through Trump’s court.”

Source: https://dzen.ru/a/Z5NruthPIUmcr4jI
Follow Tsarev’s Telegram channel: https://t.me/olegtsarov/22232
Even if Trump doesn’t help Zelensky, Biden has already secured two years of war – my interview
Despite the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating, they have not abandoned the front anywhere; the defence has not crumbled anywhere; and we still have not been able to squeeze them out of the Kursk region. They have money, they have weapons. With UAV [drones] they compensate for the shortage of manpower. The speed of the Russian army’s offensive has increased, but it’s still not enough for the front to crumble.
– Oleg Anatolyevich, even before his inauguration, Donald Trump announced a personnel purge at the State Department. How will this affect the part of the Ukrainian elite that was guided by the Democratic Administration of the United States?
In fact, the Republicans have no ties with Ukraine at all. [By contrast] Soros has consistently expanded his assets. There is the [Ukrainian] oligarch Viktor Pinchuk; there are the piglets; there are such publications as Ukrainian Pravda, Mirror of the Week [Зеркало недели], which are fixed on Soros. The Republicans only had the political strategist Paul Manafort, who at one time worked in the Party of Regions. But a criminal case was opened against him, he was received in the United States, and was pardoned by Trump. There are no such contacts now. There was also former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who pursued a thieving policy in Ukraine. But Pompeo is not on Trump’s team now — he betrayed him — so Pinchuk shouldn’t have courted him and paid him a salary. Therefore, this is a disaster for the Ukrainian elites. They have no ties to Trump and his entourage.
– What are the political prospects of the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, who was previously called an alternative to Zelensky?
The [Kiev] president’s office shows in every possible way that Zaluzhny is on their team. When Andrei Yermak flew to the United States [December 4, 2024], he met with J.D. Vance, Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz, and the US special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. After that, Yermak flew to London ostensibly to meet with Zaluzhny.
I think that the conversation in the US was so devastating for Yermak that he flew to his English supervisors to report and consult. And since I [Yermak] couldn’t get a picture with Vance, I [Yermak] took a picture with Zaluzhny. It is possible that during the last visit of the British Prime Minister to Ukraine, there was an open and closed part of the agreements [they signed]. Zaluzhny is controlled by the British, and as long as Zelensky fulfills his obligations, Zaluzhny will not run. But these are just conversations in Ukrainian politics which I can neither confirm nor deny.
– Will the Trump team push for elections in Ukraine?
That’s why Trump took a break, as he has declared, for six months to figure out what to do with Ukraine. And before leaving, the Democrats pumped Ukraine with weapons and money, so there are not many levers of pressure on Ukraine – these still need to be found. I think they will look for Zelensky’s personal money and try to put pressure on him through that. Zelensky will block their investigation inside Ukraine. But they will try to conduct at least some kind of external audit to discover how the money was stolen. And maybe even impose sanctions. In Ukraine, they also say that Trump may impose sanctions against Zelensky’s entourage if he does not listen.
– According to CNN, Trump instructed his assistants to arrange a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Will this conversation take place?
There is no doubt that negotiations between the entourages of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are underway 24/7. But a lot depends on Ukraine, on Zelensky. The conversation between Putin and Trump will be significant. But I would like to see real agreements reached. I’m not sure if everything is ready for such a conversation.
– It is important for Zelensky to keep Pokrovsk until the inauguration of Trump. The same is said about the retention of the bridgehead in the Kursk region. What advantages does Kiev have now?
Pokrovsk is a city the size of Mariupol. There are no other comparable cities except for Mariupol. We haven’t taken it since the beginning of the Special Military Operation, so taking Pokrovsk will be significant; and Kursk is important because Zelensky is looking for a reason to disrupt the negotiations. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that while the Ukrainian Armed Forces are in the Kursk region, there can be no talk of any negotiations. Therefore, Zelensky is sending the best troops there and hanging on to a foothold so that there are no negotiations. It would be strange to freeze the border with Ukraine along the front line when it runs through the Kursk region. Or the procedure will be more complicated in the form of exchanging territories, and this is not always easy to negotiate.
– How will events at the front develop in the coming months? At the end of the year, some experts spoke about the collapse of the defence of the VSU [Ukrainian Armed Forces] in the Donbass.
The collapse is still very far away. Despite the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating, they have not abandoned the front anywhere, the defence has not crumbled anywhere, and we still have not been able to squeeze them out of the Kursk region. They have money, they have guns. Yes, they have fewer people, worse motivation, but they have more drones. With them they compensate for the shortage of manpower. The speed of the Russian army’s offensive has increased, but still not enough for the front to crumble. In order to win against Ukraine, it is necessary to defeat their troops somewhere. We haven’t even been able to encircle any major groups. They always escape.
– What will help the Russian Armed Forces conduct larger operations?
It is necessary to multiply the number of drones. Preferably on optical fiber, so that they are not covered by electronic warfare stations.
– Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Ukraine could become Trump’s second Vietnam. As an example, he cited the American President Richard Nixon, who inherited the Vietnam War from his predecessor. Do you agree with this assessment?
In Vietnam, the Americans died, and it is the Ukrainians who are dying in Ukraine. Therefore, the loss in Ukraine will be extremely unpleasant for Trump, but not fatal. So when it became clear that Trump had won the election, Biden shipped weapons to Ukraine, and the United States and other countries allocated $20 billion to Kiev. The money was transferred to them for two years of the war. Even if the United States does not continue to help.
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