Trump's Anschluss

Notes on Donald Trump's press conference.

Donald Trump’s press conference yesterday was remarkable in its totality, but below are the parts that particularly held my attention:

Trump: The Panama Canal is a disgrace, what took place at the Panama Canal. Jimmy Carter gave it to them for one dollar and they were supposed to treat us well. I thought it was a terrible thing to do. It was the most expensive structure ever built in the history of our country, relatively. It would be the equivalent of substantially over US$1 trillion today. We lost 38,000 people. Think of it, 38,000 people. They died from malaria, mosquitoes. They were unable to stop the mosquitoes. They paid people five times more to take the job. Many of those people died. We gave it away for a dollar, but the deal was that they have to treat us fairly. They don’t treat us fairly. They charge more for our ships than they charge for ships of other countries. They charge more for our navy than they charge for navies of other countries. They laugh at us because they think we're stupid, but we’re not stupid anymore.

So the Panama Canal is under discussion with them right now. They violated every aspect of the agreement and they’ve morally violated it also. And they want our help because it’s leaking and not in good repair and they want us to give US$3 billion to help fix it. I said, well, why don’t you get the money from China, because China is basically taking it over. China is at both ends of the Panama Canal. China is running the Panama Canal and they come to see this Biden, this guy who should never have been allowed even to run for president. Of course, she shouldn’t have either because that never happened. I had to beat two people, not one.

But they want US$3 billion to fix the Panama Canal that’s run by China and makes a lot of money, China. One of the most profitable structures ever built, because you have ships lined up back to Florida, frankly, and they just keep going through. And the numbers are staggering US$0.5 million to US$1 million a ship. And they took it away from us, meaning we gave it to him for a dollar, but not going to happen. What they’ve done to us, they’ve charged us—they’ve overcharged our ships, overcharged our navy and then when they need repair money, they come to the United States to put it up, we get nothing.

Those days are over. Working with the Republican majorities in Congress we’ll cut taxes, slash regulations, raise wages and boost incomes at a pace the world has not seen before and certainly not from our country. … We’ll impose new tariffs so that the products on our stores will once again be stamped with those beautiful words, made in the USA, and we are not treated well, as you know, by Canada.

Canada is subsidized to the tune of about US$200 billion a year, plus other things. They don’t essentially have a military. They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It’s all fine, but they’ve got to pay for that. It’s very unfair. I have so many great friends. One of them is the great one, Wayne Gretzky.

I said run for Prime Minister, you'll win in a—it’ll take two seconds, but he said, well, am I going to run for Prime Minister or governor, you tell me? I said, I don’t know, let’s make it governor, I like it better. But no, something’s going to have to be done. Same thing with Mexico, we have a massive deficit with Mexico and we help Mexico a lot.

They’re essentially run by the cartels and can’t let that happen. Mexico is really in trouble, a lot of trouble, very dangerous place. And we’re going to be announcing at a future date pretty soon. We’re going to change because we do most of the work there and it’s ours. We’re going to be changing, sort of the opposite of Biden, where he’s closing everything up, essentially getting rid of US$50 trillion to US$60 trillion worth of assets.

We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name and it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate. And Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country. They can stop them.

And we’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada because Canada, they come through Canada too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers, record numbers. So we’re going to make up for that by putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada, substantial tariffs. And we want to get along with everybody, but it takes two to tango. We’re approaching the dawn of America\s golden age.

(He then offered a spontaneous discourse on the menace of windmills, electricity, drilling in the ocean, and how some unspecified thing the Democrats did should never have happened and was a crime. The windmills, he volunteers, are psychiatrically damaging the whales. “You know,” he says in response to a question no one asked, “a lot of people don’t realize that AI is going to be a big thing.”)

Trump: So, we’re going to have a lot of fun making America great again and it’s going to happen I think very, very quickly. … There’s never been anything like what’s happened in the last—since we won the election a couple of months—since we won the election the whole perception of the whole world is different.

(I’ll say.)

Trump: People from other countries have called me, they said, thank you. Thank you. The perception of the whole world is different. We’re going to have to settle some big problems that are going on right now. We’re going to have to settle up with Russia, Ukraine—that’s a disaster. I look at numbers every week.

The number of people being killed in that war, people don’t know, mostly soldiers now, but the towns have been obliterated. This was a Biden fiasco that he got us—that should have never happened. If we had a real president—if we had a president that knew what he was doing, Russia would have never ever gone in. But they did go in and we have a mess.

The cities are all blown up, the people have largely left, and the soldiers are killing each other at levels that haven't been seen since the Second World War. So, we'll have to get that one straightened out too. That's a tough one, much tougher than it would have been before it started, I can tell you that.

A deal could have been made just by an average dealmaker; a deal could have been made on that. So, thank you all for coming. We'll take a couple of questions. Yeah, go ahead, please.

Journalist: Mr. President, thank you. I wanted to touch on the world on fire that you mentioned, but let’s start if we could with your references to Greenland and the Panama Canal and so forth. Can you assure the world that, as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?

Trump: No.

Journalist: And can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold a vote? What is the strategy? And I—

Trump: I can’t assure you—you’re talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military.

Journalist: [Inaudible]?

Trump: I’m not going to commit to that. Now it might be that you’ll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country. It’s being operated by China—China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama; we didn't give it to China. And they’ve abused it. They’ve abused that gift. It should have never been made, by the way. Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion, more so maybe than the hostages. The hostages were a big deal. But if you remember, and nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now because it's inappropriate, I guess. But—because it’s a bad part of the Carter legacy. But he was a good man. Look, he was a good man, I knew him a little bit and he was a very fine person, but that was a big mistake. Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake. We lost 38,000 people. It cost us the equivalent of US$1 trillion, maybe more than that, probably the most expensive—they say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which I guess you can ever build. And giving that away was a horrible thing. And I believe that’s why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages, those two things.

Journalist: If I could just follow up on Ukraine and Iran, the two negotiations you’ll be heading into. On Ukraine, you said just before, it’s a lot more complicated now.

Trump: Much more complicated.

Journalist: Do you believe—

Trump: Because it would have never started.

Journalist: Right. But it has started, you’ve got—

Trump: Well, not only started, the cities are largely knocked down. They’re—

Journalist: So, you’ve got what you’ve got. At this point, would you—to hold on to leverage in dealing with President Putin, would you make a commitment to the Ukrainians that you will keep supporting them during the negotiations?

Trump: Well, I wouldn’t tell you if that were the case.

Journalist: Would you make a commitment to provide a security guarantee if they do enter into an armistice or a ceasefire along the lines that the French and the Germans—

Trump: So, you know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin, said you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now they’ve said that—that’s been like written in stone. And somewhere along the line Biden said no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that. But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation. And when I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said you’re going to end up in a war and it turned out to be a very bad war. And it could escalate—that war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now.

Journalist: [Inaudible] they can never join NATO.

Trump: Well, my view is that it was always understood. In fact, I believe that they had a deal and then Biden broke it. They had a deal which would have been a satisfactory deal to Ukraine and everybody else. But that Biden said, no, you have to be able to join NATO. And that’s always been, and nobody knows more about NATO than I. You know, years ago when I first started this, I didn’t know too much about NATO, but I got it right anyway. I said they’re taking advantage.

(Asked whether he’ll pardon January 6 insurrectionists who attacked police officers, he throws us a curveball. Hezbollah, he suspects, was responsible. They’ll have to look into it very thoroughly.)

Journalist: … That’s my question. Back up [Inaudible] your position is clear, but have you directed your staff to take any specific actions to draw up plans? And can you elaborate again that you didn't rule out military coercion in addition to —[Crosstalk]

Trump: Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. I’ve been told that for a long time, long before I even ran. I mean people have been talking about it for a long time. You have approximately 45,000 people there. People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.

That’s for the free world. I’m talking about protecting the free world. You look at—you don’t even need binoculars, you look outside, you have China ships all over the place. You have Russian ships all over the place. We’re not letting that happen. We’re not letting it happen. And if Denmark wants to get to a conclusion—but nobody knows if they even have any right title or interest. The people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States. But if they did—if they did do that, then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.

Journalist: Have you asked your staff to draw up plans for acquisition? Are you acting— [Crosstalk]

Trump: No, we’re not at that stage, but we have people— haven’t even entered office yet. …

Journalist: I want to ask you about Ukraine and Putin. How soon do you anticipate going to meet with Putin to discuss the Ukraine situation?

Trump: Well, I can’t tell you that, but I know that Putin would like to meet. I don’t think it’s appropriate that I meet until after the 20th, which I hate because every day people are being—many, many young people are being killed, soldiers. You know, the land is very flat and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers from each—many hundreds of thousands from each side are dead and they’re laying in fields all over the place, nobody to even collect, there's landmines all over, it’s a disaster. But it’s very flat. It’s great, it’s farmland and it’s very, very flat. And the only thing that stops a bullet is the human body and the human body is stopping a lot of bullets.

Journalist: [Inaudible] planning to have a conversation within the next six months?

Trump: I hope to have—six months? I would think—

Journalist: The first three to six months.

Trump: No, I hope long before six months. Look, Russia is losing a lot of young people and so is Ukraine and it should have never been started. That's a war that should have never happened. I guarantee you, if I were president that war would have never happened.

I’ll draw a curtain of charity over the rest of the press conference.

But there is more. Watch this:

There are two ways to interpret this hallucinatory display. The first is that the president-elect of the United States is completely out of his mind—far more so than even I figured, and I figured he was totally, stark-staring nuts. He’s perseverating on random words and images that he finds pleasing, subsumed in a demented miasma, and the only place he should be is sectioned for his own good. This, I think, is how many people are understanding it.

There’s another way to interpret this press conference. But before explaining it, I’d like to first draw your attention to two items—we’ll do a weave, so to speak.

First, Greenland. Journalists, wondering how on earth it occurred to Trump that the United States must possess Greenland, have speculated that Trump is drawn to Greenland because it looks big on a Mercator map. I just listened to a podcast in which the speakers expressed their bewilderment: “What is the strategic value of Greenland?” one asked. “There is none whatsoever,” said the other.

This is not correct.

The astronomer Geoff Marcy recently sent me the email below:

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By Geoff Marcy

Greenland plays a critical role in the defense of the United States against Russian ballistic missiles due to its strategic location in the Arctic, directly along potential flight paths of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched from Russia towards North America.

Greenland hosts the Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base), a major US military installation. It is a key component of the US missile defense system, which operates advanced radar systems capable of detecting and tracking incoming missiles early in their trajectory. This early warning capability provides essential time for response measures, including intercepts by US ground- or sea-based missile defense systems.

Greenland’s location supports broader Arctic surveillance, including of shipping lanes, and enhances US and NATO strategic presence in a region increasingly contested by Russian military activities. By maintaining robust operations in Greenland, the US strengthens its northern defenses and reinforces deterrence against potential missile threats.

The missile silos housing Russia’s 1,700 ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are scattered throughout western and southern Russia. The ballistic path above the atmosphere from the Russian missile silos toward the East Coast of the United States passes directly over Greenland. A ballistic path is simply a sub-orbital trajectory, like the arc of a fast baseball under gravity, which is a part of a “great circle.”

The ballistic path from one Russian missile silo to Washington DC is shown in the graphic here:

Russia’s ballistic missile silos are primarily located in strategic regions across the country, designed to enhance survivability and operational readiness. The silos house intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and are managed by Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN). Key locations include:

1. Kozelsk

• Located southwest of Moscow.

• Hosts silo-based RS-24 Yars ICBMs, a modern missile capable of carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs).

2. Tatishchevo

• Near Saratov, in western Russia.

• Home to RS-18 (SS-19 Stiletto) and RS-20 (SS-18 Satan) ICBMs, though many of these are being replaced with newer systems.

3. Dombarovsky

• Near Yasny, in Orenburg Oblast, southeastern Russia.

• Houses RS-20 (SS-18 Satan) ICBMs, with some silos used for commercial satellite launches under the Dnepr program.

4. Uzhur

• In Krasnoyarsk Krai, central Siberia.

• Features silo-based RS-24 Yars ICBMs and previously hosted older-generation missiles like the SS-18.

5. Vypolzovo

• Near Tver, northwest of Moscow.

• Operates RS-24 Yars ICBMs.

6. Barnaul

• In the Altai region of southern Siberia.

• Focused on newer RS-24 Yars systems.

The geographic distribution of Russian silos also ensures coverage of the United States and other strategic targets while providing redundancy and resilience against a first-strike scenario. The locations are often remote, enhancing survivability against preemptive attacks.

The US Pituffik Space Base in Greenland (formerly known as Thule Air Base)

1. Strategic Location

• Pituffik is the northernmost US military base, positioned at a pivotal point for monitoring ballistic missile activity and conducting space surveillance.

• Its location makes it an essential part of early warning systems, particularly against missile launches from potential adversaries like Russia.

2. Early Warning and Missile Defense

• The base hosts a Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) radar, which provides critical data on intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches.

• This radar is part of the broader US and NATO defense network, enhancing North American and European security.

3. Space Surveillance

• Pituffik contributes to the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) by tracking satellites and space debris, ensuring safe operations in Earth’s orbit.

• It also supports space-based assets critical to military communications and global navigation.

4. Arctic Operations

• As Arctic activity increases due to climate change and geopolitical competition, Pituffik is vital for maintaining US presence and readiness in the region.

• It provides logistical and operational support for US and allied missions in the Arctic.

5. Historical and Cultural Context

• Established in 1951, the base has long served as a cornerstone of US Arctic strategy.

• Its location in Greenland underscores the importance of US-Danish cooperation, as Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Renaming to Pituffik Space Base

The base was renamed in 2023 to reflect its role within the US Space Force and its importance in space-related defense and surveillance missions. The name "Pituffik" comes from the local Greenlandic language, honoring the area’s heritage.

In summary, Pituffik Space Base in Greenland is a linchpin in US strategic defense and space operations, leveraging its Arctic location for early warning, space surveillance, and strengthening the US presence in a geopolitically vital region.

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(It’s Claire again.)

I’ll add just a few more points. As ice melts due to climate change, new shipping routes such as the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage are opening. Greenland will probably become a major hub for maritime traffic and trade.

Much more importantly, significant geological surveys indicate that Greenland is the most promising location for rare earth element mining outside of China. The Kvanefjeld plateau, in southern Greenland is known to contain one of the world's largest deposits of neodymium, praseodymium, lanthanum, and cerium, which are essential for manufacturing magnets, batteries, and other high-tech components.

Another major site, the nearby Tanbreez deposit, contains high concentrations of zirconium, niobium, and tantalum. These are vital for aerospace technologies, electronics, and superconductors. The broader Ilimaussaq intrusive complex, which includes the Kvanefjeld area, is rich in rare minerals such as eudialyte and steenstrupine.

Among the rare earths known to exist in Greenland in ample supply are neodymium (used in powerful permanent magnets for wind turbines, electric vehicles, and electronics); praseodymium (high-strength magnets and alloys) lanthanum (optics, batteries, and catalysts), cerium (catalytic converters, glass polishing, and LEDs), dysprosium and terbium (high-temperature magnets used in electric vehicles), and zirconium and niobium (structural materials in aerospace and advanced electronics).

Advanced military technology, in particular, requires dysprosium and terbium. Dysprosium and terbium are added to NdFeB magnets to enhance their performance at high temperatures. These enhanced magnets are essential to the gyroscopes, accelerometers, and control systems on precision-guided missiles, not to mention the advanced sonar systems used in submarines. Terbium-doped materials are used in laser systems to increase their efficiency and performance in missile defense and drone interception. Want a secure, high-frequency communication system? You need dysprosium and terbium. Want jamming device devices and electronic countermeasures? You need dysprosium and terbium. Want high-performance motors in your UAVs? Military robots?

You get the idea. I imagine they’re rather important to rocketry, as well. And did I mention electric vehicles?

Right now, China accounts for 80 to 90 percent of global rare earth production and an even larger share of the processing capacity. Our military, for obvious reasons, regards this situation with concern.

Greenland was colonized by Denmark in the early 18th century, though it had been inhabited by Inuits for thousands of years. Danish rule brought the usual indignities of European colonization. In 1953, Greenland formally became part of Denmark; whereas before it was a colony, afterward it was “an autonomous region.” The change gave Greenlanders Danish citizenship. It also formalized Danish control over Greenland’s affairs.

In 1979, Greenland’s independence movement achieved a significant victory when Greenland was granted home rule, allowing for the creation of its own parliament and government. This system devolved powers to Greenland in arenas like education, health, and—most importantly for our purposes—authority over its natural resources, meaning it is now up to Greenlanders to decide which mining activities to pursue. Denmark, meanwhile, oversees the territory’s foreign policy and defense.

As you might expect, the Greenland independence movement has been animated by a sense of grievance over colonialism and external governance. Many view their autonomy as a stepping stone to full independence, but the territory remains uncomfortably dependent on Denmark: Danish subsidies currently amount to a quarter of Greenland’s GDP. ¹

Now the plot gets thick as sludge. The Kvanefjeld deposit also contains uranium. This has been a source of controversy. Obviously, uranium mining poses significant risks to the environment and human health. Dust, tailings, and waste byproducts contaminate the air, soil, and water—and they do so for a good long time. Greenland’s Arctic environment is particularly fragile. The potential for radioactive waste to enter water systems, especially given the melting ice sheet, is real. The indigenous Inuits largely support themselves by fishing and hunting. They are uneasy at the thought of irradiating their environment.

Denmark has historically discouraged uranium mining, fearing its impact on Greenland’s environment and Denmark’s reputation as a responsible actor in nuclear nonproliferation. Supporters of mining, however, note that exploiting these resources would diversify Greenland’s economy, create jobs, and generate revenue that would reduce Greenland’s dependence on Danish subsidies. This is important to a people who aspire to full independence.

In 2021, the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party won Greenland’s parliamentary election on a platform staunchly opposed to uranium mining. Shortly after taking office, they made good on their promises, passing a law that banned uranium mining and effectively ending the development of the Kvanefjeld mine. But Chinese companies, such as Shenghe Resources, had invested in Greenland’s mining projects, particularly the Kvanefjeld site. The new law amounted to a considerable setback to China’s Arctic ambitions. It is not clear what China plans to do about it, but there are only about 56,000 Greenlanders.

As the fourth season of Bergen hints, Greenland’s Arctic waters, though largely unexplored, are thought to contain vast reserves of oil and natural gas.

Are we sure it’s just because Trump can’t read a Mercator map? Maybe he can’t, but I suspect Musk can.

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Now, let me draw you draw your attention to an article by Robert Kagan, in the Atlantic, that I truly hope you’ll take the time read from start to finish. It’s titled, “Trump is facing a catastrophic defeat in Ukraine.” The subtitle reads, ““If Ukraine falls, it will be hard to spin it as anything but a debacle for the United States, and for its president.”

Kagan argues—correctly—that without substantial new US aid, Ukraine will lose the war against Russia within 12 to 18 months, leading to a complete loss of sovereignty and full Russian control:

Ukraine will not lose in a nice, negotiated way, with vital territories sacrificed but an independent Ukraine kept alive, sovereign, and protected by Western security guarantees. …

This poses an immediate problem for Donald Trump. He promised to settle the war quickly upon taking office, but now faces the hard reality that Vladimir Putin has no interest in a negotiated settlement that leaves Ukraine intact as a sovereign nation. Putin also sees an opportunity to strike a damaging blow at American global power. Trump must now choose between accepting a humiliating strategic defeat on the global stage and immediately redoubling American support for Ukraine while there’s still time. The choice he makes in the next few weeks will determine not only the fate of Ukraine but also the success of his presidency.

Kagan rightly notes that the fall of Ukraine would be a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe. But Trump has promised to end the war quickly. Putin, Kagan writes, is resolute and unyielding. He has no intention of negotiating a settlement that allows Ukraine to maintain its independence. Any deal Trump might broker would, therefore, come at the cost of Ukrainian sovereignty—a compromise that would amount to a catastrophic defeat for American global leadership and the credibility of it all alliances.

Trump is promoting the notion—an outright nonsense—that the war was a response, indeed a natural response, to a NATO expansion that did not happen and was not in the cards. But as Kagan writes, again correctly,

The end of an independent Ukraine is and always has been Putin’s goal. While foreign-policy commentators spin theories about what kind of deal Putin might accept, how much territory he might demand, and what kind of security guarantees, demilitarized zones, and foreign assistance he might permit, Putin himself has never shown interest in anything short of Ukraine’s complete capitulation. … Western experts filling the op-ed pages and journals with ideas for securing a post-settlement Ukraine have been negotiating with themselves.

(Well said.) As Kagan moreover points out,

It is not at all clear that Putin even seeks the return to normalcy that peace in Ukraine would bring. In December, he increased defense spending to a record US$126 billion, 32.5 percent of all government spending, to meet the needs of the Ukraine war. Next year, defense spending is projected to reach 40 percent of the Russian budget. (By comparison, the world’s strongest military power, the US, spends 16 percent of its total budget on defense.) Putin has revamped the Russian education system to instill military values from grade school to university. He has appointed military veterans to high-profile positions in government as part of an effort to forge a new Russian elite, made up, as Putin says, exclusively of “those who serve Russia, hard workers and [the] military.” He has resurrected Stalin as a hero. Today, Russia looks outwardly like the Russia of the Great Patriotic War, with exuberant nationalism stimulated and the smallest dissent brutally repressed.

Is all of this just a temporary response to the war, or is it also the direction Putin wants to steer Russian society? He talks about preparing Russia for the global struggles ahead. Continuing conflict justifies continuing sacrifice and continuing repression. Turning such transformations of society on and off and on again like a light switch—as would be necessary if Putin agreed to a truce and then, a couple of years later, resumed his attack—is not so easy. …

Russia faces problems, even serious problems, but Putin believes that without substantial new aid Ukraine’s problems are going to bring it down sooner than Russia.

That is the key point: Putin sees the timelines working in his favor. Russian forces may begin to run low on military equipment in the fall of 2025, but by that time Ukraine may already be close to collapse. Ukraine can’t sustain the war another year without a new aid package from the United States.

Thus when Putin contemplates the world, he sees a constellation of obliging stars aligning in his favor:

Putin will soon have an American president and a foreign-policy team who have consistently opposed further aid to Ukraine. The transatlantic alliance, once so unified, is in disarray, with America’s European allies in a panic that Trump will pull out of NATO or weaken their economies with tariffs, or both. Europe itself is at a low point; political turmoil in Germany and France has left a leadership vacuum that will not be filled for months, at best. If Trump cuts off or reduces aid to Ukraine, as he has recently suggested he would, then not only will Ukraine collapse but the divisions between the US and its allies, and among the Europeans themselves, will deepen and multiply. Putin is closer to his aim of splintering the West than at any other time in the quarter century since he took power.

Is this a moment at which to expect Putin to negotiate a peace deal?

Morally, the most important section of this article stresses what would happen to Ukraine should Russia win:

A Russian victory means the end of Ukraine. Putin’s aim is not an independent albeit smaller Ukraine, a neutral Ukraine, or even an autonomous Ukraine within a Russian sphere of influence. His goal is no Ukraine. “Modern Ukraine,” he has said, “is entirely the product of the Soviet era.” Putin does not just want to sever Ukraine’s relationships with the West. He aims to stamp out the very idea of Ukraine, to erase it as a political and cultural entity. …

The vigorous Russification that Putin’s forces have been imposing in Crimea and the Donbas and other conquered Ukrainian territories is evidence of the deadly seriousness of his intent. International human-rights organizations and journalists, writing in The New York Times, have documented the creation in occupied Ukraine of “a highly institutionalized, bureaucratic and frequently brutal system of repression run by Moscow” comprising “a gulag of more than 100 prisons, detention facilities, informal camps and basements” across an area roughly the size of Ohio. According to a June 2023 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, nearly all Ukrainians released from this gulag reported being subjected to systematic torture and abuse by Russian authorities. Tortures ranged from “punching and cutting detainees, putting sharp objects under fingernails, hitting with batons and rifle butts, strangling, waterboarding, electrocution, stress positions for long periods, exposure to cold temperatures or to a hot box, deprivation of water and food, and mock executions or threats.” Much of the abuse has been sexual, with women and men raped or threatened with rape. Hundreds of summary executions have been documented, and more are likely—many of the civilians detained by Russia have yet to be seen again. Escapees from Russian-occupied Ukraine speak of a “prison society” in which anyone with pro-Ukrainian views risks being sent “to the basement,” where torture and possible death await.

… “The majority of victims,” according to the State Department, have been “active or former local public officials, human rights defenders, civil society activists, journalists, and media workers.” According to the OHCHR, “Russia’s military and their proxies often detained civilians over suspicions regarding their political views, particularly related to pro-Ukrainian sentiments.” … In schools throughout the Russian-occupied territories, students learn a Russian curriculum and complete a Russian “patriotic education program” and early military training, all taught by teachers sent from the Russian Federation. Parents who object to this Russification risk having their children taken away and sent to boarding schools in Russia or occupied Crimea, where, Putin has decreed, they can be adopted by Russian citizens. By the end of 2023, Ukrainian officials had verified the names of 19,000 children relocated to schools and camps in Russia or to Russian-occupied territory.

… These horrors await the rest of Ukraine if Putin wins. Imagine what that will look like. More than 1 million Ukrainians have taken up arms against Russia since February 2022. What happens to them if, when the fighting stops, Russia has gained control of the entire country? What happens to the politicians, journalists, NGO workers, and human-rights activists who helped in innumerable ways to fight the Russian invaders? … Some commentators argue that it would be better to let Ukraine lose quickly because that, at least, would end the suffering. Yet for many millions of Ukrainians, defeat would be just the beginning of their suffering.

The commentators who argue that it would be a favor to Ukraine to allow them to lose have no sense of history. Putin admires and models himself on the great monsters of Russian history. For Ukraine, losing the war will mean genocide and slavery. Is a pity that these words have become so debased that no one understands them anymore.

Trump, writes Kagan,

now finds himself in a trap only partly of his own devising. … now [he] is in the position of having promised a peace deal that he cannot possibly get without forcing Putin to recalculate. …

Trump has a credibility problem, partly due to the Biden administration’s failures, but partly of his own making. Putin knows what we all know: that Trump wants out of Ukraine. He does not want to own the war, does not want to spend his first term in a confrontation with Russia, does not want the close cooperation with NATO and other allies that continuing support for Ukraine will require, and, above all, does not want to spend the first months of his new term pushing a Ukraine aid package through Congress after running against that aid. Putin also knows that even if Trump eventually changes his mind, perhaps out of frustration with Putin’s stalling, it will be too late. Months would pass before an aid bill made it through both houses and weaponry began arriving on the battlefield. Putin watched that process grind on last year, and he used the time well. He can afford to wait. After all, if eight months from now Putin feels the tide about to turn against him in the war, he can make the same deal then that Trump would like him to make now. In the meantime, he can continue pummeling the demoralized Ukrainians, taking down what remains of their energy grid, and shrinking the territory under Kyiv’s control.

The only way to escape this is to do exactly what Trump has promised not to do: He must persuade Putin that the United States will not allow Ukraine to fall. The only way to persuade him is by providing a significant amount of fresh aid—fast. Only this would change the timeline and thus Putin’s calculations. Putin, Kagan writes, must be made to understand the time isn’t on his side: His army will collapse before Ukraine is conquered.

Kagan stresses, and he’s right to do so, that Putin’s supreme objective is the defeat of the United States:

His goal for more than two decades has been to weaken the US and break its global hegemony and its leadership of the “liberal world order” so that Russia may resume what he sees as its rightful place as a European great power and an empire with global influence. Putin has many immediate reasons to want to subjugate Ukraine, but he also believes that victory will begin the unraveling of eight decades of American global primacy and the oppressive, American-led liberal world order. Think of what he can accomplish by proving through the conquest of Ukraine that even America’s No. 1 tough guy, the man who would “make America great again,” who garnered the support of the majority of American male voters, is helpless to stop him and to prevent a significant blow to American power and influence. In other words, think of what it will mean for Donald Trump’s America to lose. Far from wanting to help Trump, Putin benefits by humiliating him. It wouldn’t be personal. It would be strictly business …

Trump therefore faces what Kagan calls a paradox. He and the entourage around him share Putin’s hostility to the global order that the United States brought into being. They share Putin’s hostility to NATO. As Kagan points out, the original America First movement sought to prevent the United States from becoming a global power.² But Trump’s problem is that “unlike his fellow travelers in anti-liberalism,” he will soon be the president of the United States.

The liberal world order is inseparable from American power, and not just because it depends on American power. … Trump can’t stop defending the liberal world order without ceding significantly greater influence to Russia and China. Like Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Ali Khamenei see the weakening of America as essential to their own ambitions. Trump may share their hostility to the liberal order, but does he also share their desire to weaken America and, by extension, himself? …

Today, not only Putin but Xi, Kim, Khamenei, and others whom the American people generally regard as adversaries believe that a Russian victory in Ukraine will do grave damage to American strength everywhere. That is why they are pouring money, weaponry, and, in the case of North Korea, even their own soldiers into the battle. Whatever short-term benefits they may be deriving from assisting Russia, the big payoff they seek is a deadly blow to the American power and influence that has constrained them for decades.

What’s more, America’s allies around the world agree. They, too, believe that a Russian victory in Ukraine, in addition to threatening the immediate security of European states, will undo the American-led security system they depend on. That is why even Asian allies far from the scene of the war have been making their own contributions to the fight.

I agree with every word he writes. But here, I begin to worry that his argument devolves into wishful thinking. Although he doesn’t say so explicitly, Kagan seems to think, or hope, that Trump’s terror of being a loser might militate against his worst instincts. Images of the fall of Afghanistan, Kagan reminds readers, permanently soured Americans on the Biden presidency, but those images would be as nothing compared to what we will see and hear when Ukraine falls.

He seems to be addressing his argument to Trump himself: “If you allow this to happen,” he is warning him, “you will be deeply unpopular. Americans will see you as weak. They will see you as a loser.”

But what if Trump has thought of this already?

And what if he has a plan for this?

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Back to the press conference. My weaves actually weave. There are two ways to interpret it. The first is that Trump is out of his mind. His utterances are impulsive and meaningless ravings. He could not be serious about invading Greenland, Panama, and Canada, and even if he were, he could not possibly make it happen. His attention span for the idea will be no greater than it was for building a wall in a hurricane or nuking a hurricane.

Or perhaps, as Senator Chris Murphy suggests, he’s just trying to distract us from his tax plans.

Those who adhere to this view do not find it especially significant that in his remarks about Ukraine, Trump is yet again serving as Putin’s ventriloquist.³ that’s just Trump being Trump, they might reply. It goes to show that Russia’s propaganda is effective on him, and why wouldn’t it be? He gets his news from sources well-known for echoing the Kremlin, and he spends his days with Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, and Tulsi Gabbard. But it doesn’t mean more than that. He is simply too dumb to understand who he’s parroting.

It’s definitely the cautious theory.

The second theory is that Trump does understand what he’s saying. But whereas Kagan hopes Trump will be loath to superintend over a strategic and moral catastrophe that would make him a loser forever in the eyes of a profoundly diminished America, Trump has already priced that in and figured out how he’ll avoid that. He reckons that acquiring Panama and Greenland—and for God’s sake, Canada—will distract Americans from their loss.

In this interpretation, Trump shares Putin’s vision of a world carved up into imperial zones of interest, with the United States becoming Greater America—through purchase or conquest, or perhaps nuclear blackmail—to compensate for the loss of its global power. He has either agreed to this with Putin explicitly, or he is counting on Putin to understand the implicit quid pro quo. His base, he reckons, will be so thrilled to be Greenland’s new imperial overlords that they’ll forget all about the destruction of Ukraine. And after he conquers Canada, too, a colossal sculpture of Donald Trump will be carved into the face of every mountain top in Greater America. He will be immortal.

He might even be right about how his base would react:

Do I believe this? Sane people don’t believe things like this, right?

I just can’t quite bring myself to believe it. It’s too fantastical, too horrible, too bizarre, too monstrous, too insane. (It also relies on the idea that Trump is vastly more intelligent and mentally organized than he appears, which I also can’t quite bring myself to believe.) The whole thing sounds like a novel—and it certainly sounds like a conspiracy theory. It can’t be real.

But can you explain why Trump’s vision coincides so perfectly with Vladimir Putin’s? Something beyond “it’s just coincidence?” If you can, please tell me, because this is terrifying me. I now very much fear that we’ll see the worst imaginable scenario in Ukraine, followed by the worst imaginable scenario in Europe and Asia.

When I allow myself to think that this might be reality—that the world will soon see horrors every bit the equal of 20th century’s, and worse—I find myself almost unable to breathe. I can only consider it, in all of its awfulness, for minutes at a time.

My God, I hope he’s just insane. Please let him just be insane.

Elections sure do have consequences.

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Postscript:

1. I’m given to understand that you can learn all about the subtleties of this by watching the Danish television show Borgen, recommended to me by my brother. Borgen is about the career of Birgitte Nyborg, a fictional Prime Minister of Denmark. In the fourth season, apparently, the tensions between the central government and the Greenlanders plays a central role in the storyline. I haven’t watched it yet, but I do trust my brother.)

Note that in the trailer, it is Russia, not the United States, who is the villain.

2. If you've not read Lindberg’s infamous speech, “Who Are The War Agitators?” I cannot more strongly urge you to read it. It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that all of these instincts are very deep aspects of our national character. They were somehow suppressed, through a cultural mechanism I simply don’t understand, for the entirety of the period between Pearl Harbor and Trump’s ride down the escalator.

There is something so odd about this, though. Fewer than one in a thousand Americans, I’d wager, have read that speech. Why did the America First movement—a name associated with the most discredited ideas in American history outside of chattel slavery—suddenly roar back to prominence in our national life, like a cancer after a remission? (Is it credible to think, as Trump claims, that he didn’t know the origin of the phrase? I genuinely don’t know.) Where did those ideas go, exactly, during the very long time when it would have occurred to no American to think or say these things?

It does make you wonder what other hideous thing, thought long-buried, is now gathering its strength and poised to return.

For more on the America First movement in its original instantiation, this is good.

3. It’s remarkable how many of Russia’s lies he managed to fit into these sentences. In the interest of brevity, I won’t yet again recount the history of this conflict or the history of these particular lies. I’m sure someone else, somewhere, will explain this. I’ll just note an oddity: If viewers of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin had actually listened to Putin, they would be the first to grasp that these are lies.

Carlson tried, over and over, to coax Putin into saying that the prospect of NATO’s expansion had left him no choice. Putin demurred, instead spending 90 minutes explaining his case for invading Ukraine at length. For those of you who want reminding, I reproduce the relevant part the transcript below. I haven’t corrected Putin’s lies, distortions, omissions, and fantasies about European history because it would take me all day. I leave that to you as an exercise. (But I do worry that readers unfamiliar with this history might come away from this wondering if it’s true that Poland started the Second World War by provoking Hitler. No. It is not true. Nor is it true that we “sponsored a coup” in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson either did not know enough to correct Putin’s lies or he was eager to participate in them. I suspect the former. No man who knows better would be willing to look like such a fool.)

Putin says many things here that are not true, and neglects to mention many things that are. Do not take him seriously as a historian. The point is that Tucker Carlson repeatedly set him up to explain that he was so threatened by the prospect of NATO expansion to Ukraine that he had no choice to invade; instead, Putin repeatedly offered that he invaded Ukraine because he believes Ukraine should not exist. He mentions NATO expansion in passing, along with a host of other grievances, and only after making the case, at great length, that Ukraine is an illegitimate and artificial entity whose existence is owed to the intrigues of the union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland in the 13th century and the Austrian General Staff in advance of the First World War. He believes Ukraine is “historical Russian land.”

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TC: Mr. President, thank you. On February 22nd, 2022, you addressed your country in a nationwide address when the conflict in Ukraine started, and you said that you were acting because you had come to the conclusion that the United States, through NATO, might initiate a “surprise attack on our country.” … How did you conclude that?

Putin: It’s not that America, the United States, was going to launch a surprise strike in Russia. I didn’t say that. Are we having a talk show or a serious conversation? … Let’s look where our relationship with Ukraine started from. Where did Ukraine come from? The Russian state started gathering itself as a centralized statehood, and it is considered to be the year of the establishment of the Russian state, in 862 when the townspeople of Novgorod invited a Varangian prince, Rurik, from Scandinavia to Reign. In 1862 Russia celebrated the 1000th anniversary of its statehood, and in Novgorod there is a memorial dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the country. In 882 Rurik’s successor Prince Oleg, who was actually playing the role of regent and Rurik’s young son because Rurik had died by that time, came to Kiev. He ousted two brothers who apparently had once been members of Rurik’s squad, so Russia began to develop with two centers of power, Kiev and Novgorod. The next very significant date in the history of Russia was 988. This was the baptism of Russia when Prince Vladimir, the great-grandson of Rurik, baptized Russia and adopted orthodoxy or eastern Christianity. From this time, the centralized Russian state began to strengthen. Why? Because of the single territory integrated economic size, one and the same language, and after the baptism of Russia, the same faith and rule of the prince. The centralized Russian state began to take shape. Back in the Middle Ages, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, introduced the order of succession to a throne. But after he passed away, it became complicated for various reasons. The throne was passed not directly from father to eldest son, but from the prince who had passed away to his brother, then to his sons in different lines. All this led to the fragmentation and the end of Rus as a single state.

There was nothing special about it. The same was happening then in Europe, but the fragmented Russian state became an easy prey to the Empire, created earlier by Genghis Khan. His successors, namely Batu Khan, came to Rus, plundered and ruined nearly all the cities. The southern part, including Kiev by the way, and some other cities simply lost independence while northern cities preserved some of their sovereignty. They had to pay tribute to the Horde, but they managed to preserve some part of their sovereignty. And then a unified Russian state began to take shape with its center in Moscow. The southern part of Russian lands, including Kiev, began to gradually gravitate towards another magnet, the center that was emerging in Europe. This was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was even called the Lithuanian Russian Duchy because Russians were a significant part of this population. They spoke the old Russian language and were Orthodox. But then there was a unification, the union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. A few years later, another union was signed, but this time already in the religious sphere. Some of the Orthodox priests became subordinate to the Pope, thus these lands became part of the Polish-Lithuanian state. During decades, the Poles were engaged in colonization of this part of the population. They introduced their language there, tried to entrench the idea that this population was not exactly Russians, that because they lived on the fringe, they were Ukrainians.

Originally, the word Ukrainian meant that the person was living on the outskirts of the state along the fringes or was engaged in a border patrol service. It didn’t mean any particular ethnic group. So the Poles were trying, in every possible way, to colonize this part of the Russian lands and actually treated it rather harshly, not to say cruelly. All that led to the fact that this part of the Russian lands began to struggle for their rights. They wrote letters to Warsaw demanding that their rights be observed and people be commissioned here, including to Kiev. … [this] was in the 13th century.

Now I will tell you what happened later, and give the dates so that there is no confusion. And in 1654, even a bit earlier, the people who were in control of the authority over that part of the Russian lands addressed Warsaw, I repeat, demanding that they send them to rulers of Russian origin and Orthodox faith. When Warsaw did not answer them, and in fact rejected their demands, they turned to Moscow, so that Moscow took them away. So that you don’t think that I’m inventing things, I’ll give you these documents. … Here are the letters from Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the man who then controlled the power in this part of the Russian lands that is now called Ukraine. He wrote to Warsaw demanding that they rights be upheld, and after being refused, he began to write letters to Moscow asking to take them under the strong hand of the Moscow Tsar. There are copies of these documents. I will leave them for your good memory. There is a translation into Russian. You can translate it into English later.

Russia would not agree to admit them straight away, assuming that the war with Poland would start. Nevertheless, in 1654 upon Russian assembly of top clergy and landowners headed by the Tsar, which was the representative body of the power of the old Russian state, decided to include a part of the old Russian lands into Moscow Kingdom. As expected, the war with Poland began, it lasted 13 years, and then in 1654 a truce was concluded, and thirty-two years later, I think, a peace treaty with Poland, which they called Eternal Peace, was signed, and these lands, the whole left bank of Dnieper, including Kiev, went to Russia and the whole right bank of Dnieper remained in Poland.

Under the rule of Catherine the Great, Russia reclaimed all of its historical lands, including in the south and west. This all lasted until the revolution. Before World War I, Austrian general staff relied on the ideas of Ukrainianization and started actively promoting the ideas of Ukraine and the Ukrainianization. Their motive was obvious. Just before World War I, they wanted to weaken the potential enemy and secure themselves favorable conditions in the border area. So the idea which had emerged in Poland, that people residing in that territory were allegedly not really Russians but rather belonged to a special ethnic group, Ukrainians, started being propagated by the Austrian general staff. …

In 1939, after Poland cooperated with Hitler—it did collaborate with Hitler—Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship, and alliance, demanding in return that Poland give back to Germany the so-called Danzig Corridor, which connected the bulk of Germany with East Prussia and Königsberg. After World War I, this territory was transferred to Poland and instead of Danzig, a city of Gdansk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused.

TC: Of course. [My God, what an imbecile.] … May I ask you, you’re making the case that Ukraine, certainly parts of Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, is in effect Russia. Has been for hundreds of years. Why wouldn’t you just take it when you became President twenty-four years ago? You have nuclear weapons, they don’t. If it’s actually your land, why did you wait so long?

Putin: I’ll tell you, I’m coming to that. … So before World War II, Poland collaborated with Hitler, and although it did not yield to Hitler’s demands, it still participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. As the Poles had not given the Danzig corridor to Germany, had went so far pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1st September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland. By the way, the USSR, I have read some archive documents, behaved very honestly. It asked Poland’s permission to transit its troops through the Polish territory to help Czechoslovakia. But the then Polish foreign minister said that if the Soviet plans flew over Poland, they would be downed over the territory of Poland. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the war began and Poland fell prey to the policies it had pursued against Czechoslovakia under the well-known Molotov Ribbon Shop Pact. Part of the territory, including Western Ukraine, was to be given to Russia, thus Russia, which was then named the USSR, regained its historical lands.

After the victory in the Great Patriotic war, as we call World War II, all those territories were ultimately enshrined as belonging to Russia, to the USSR. As for Poland, it received, apparently in compensation, the lands which had originally been German. The eastern parts of Germany, these are now Western lands of Poland. Of course, Poland regained access to the Baltic Sea and Danzig, which was once again given its Polish name. So this was how this situation developed. In 1922, when the USSR was being established, the Bolsheviks started building the USSR and established the Soviet Ukraine, which had never existed before. Stalin insisted that those republics be included in the USSR as autonomous entities. For some inexplicable reason, Lenin, the founder of the Soviet State, insisted that they be entitled to withdraw from the USSR. And again, for some unknown reasons, he transferred to that newly established Soviet Republic of Ukraine, some of the lands together with people living there, even though those lands had never been called Ukraine, and yet they were made part of that Soviet Republic of Ukraine. Those lands included the Black Sea Region which was received under Catherine the Great and which had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever. Even if we go as far back as 1654, when these lands returned to Russian Empire, that territory was the size of three to four regions of modern Ukraine with no Black Sea Region. That was completely out of the question.

TC: In 1654?

Putin: Exactly.

TC: You obviously have encyclopedic knowledge of this region, but why didn’t you make this case for the first twenty-two years as president? That Ukraine wasn’t a real country.

Putin: The Soviet Union was given a great deal of territory that had never belonged to it, including the Black Sea Region. At some point, when Russia received them as an outcome of the Russo-Turkish Wars, they were called New Russia or Novorossiya, but that does not matter. What matters is that Lenin, the founder of the Soviet State, established Ukraine that way. For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic developed as part of the USSR, and for unknown reasons, again, the Bolsheviks were engaged in Ukrainianization. It was not merely because the Soviet leadership was composed to a great extent of those originating from Ukraine. Rather, it was explained by the general policy of indigenization pursued by the Soviet Union. Same things were done in other Soviet Republics. This involved promoting national languages and national cultures, which is not bad in principle. That is how the Soviet Ukraine was created. After the World War II Ukraine received, in addition to the lands that had belonged to Poland before the war, part of the lands that had previously belonged to Hungary and Romania. So Romania and Hungary had some of their lands taken away and given to the Soviet Ukraine, and they still remain part of Ukraine. So in this sense, we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will. …

TC: … But the fact is that you didn’t make this case in public until two years ago, February, and in the case that you made, which I read today, you explain at great length that you felt a physical threat from the West in NATO, including potentially a nuclear threat, and that’s what got you to move. Is that a fair characterization of what you said?

Putin: I understand that my long speeches probably fall outside of the genre of the interview. That is why I asked you at the beginning, are we going to have a serious talk or a show? You said a serious talk, so bear with me please. We’re coming to the point where the Soviet Ukraine was established. Then in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and everything that Russia had generously bestowed on Ukraine was dragged away by the latter. I’m coming to a very important point of today’s agenda.

TC: Thank you.

Putin: After all, the collapse of the Soviet Union was effectively initiated by the Russian leadership. I do not understand what the Russian leadership was guided by at the time, but I suspect there were several reasons to think everything would be fine. First, I think that, then, Russian leadership believed that the fundamentals of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine were in fact a common language. More than 90 percent of the population there spoke Russian. Family ties, every third person there had some kind of family friendship ties, common culture, common history. Finally, common faith coexistence with a single state for centuries, and deeply interconnected economies. All of these were so fundamental. All these elements together make our good relationships inevitable.

The second point is a very important one. I want you as an American citizen and your viewers to hear about this as well. The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed voluntarily and proactively to the collapse of the Soviet Union and believed that this would be understood by the so-called “Civilized West” as an invitation for cooperation and associateship. That is what Russia was expecting, both from the United States and the so-called Collective West as a whole.

There were smart people, including in Germany, Egon Barr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that a new security system should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unify Germany, but a new system should be also established to include the United States, Canada, Russia, and other central European countries, but NATO needs not to expand. That’s what he said. If NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia’s borders. That’s all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. In fact, he got angry once. “If,” he said, “you don’t listen to me, I’m never setting my foot in Moscow once again.” Everything happened just as he had said.

TC: Well, of course it did come true, and you’ve mentioned this many times. I think it’s a fair point, and many in America thought that relations between Russia and the United States would be fine with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, that the opposite happened. But you’ve never explained why you think that happened except to say that the West fears a strong Russia, but we have a strong China the West does not seem very afraid of. What about Russia, do you think, convinced policymakers they had to take it down a bit?

Putin: The West is afraid of strong China more than it fears a strong Russia because Russia has 150 million people and China has 1.5 billion population, and its economy is growing by leaps and bounds, or 5 percent a year. It used to be even more. But that’s enough for China. As Bismarck once put it, potentials are the most important. China’s potential is enormous. It is the biggest economy in the world today in terms of purchasing power parity and the size of the economy. It has already overtaken the United States quite a long time ago, and it is growing at a rapid clip. Let’s not talk about who is afraid of whom. Let’s not reason in such terms, and let’s get into the fact that after 1991, when Russia expected that it would be welcomed into the brotherly family of civilized nations, nothing like this happened. You tricked us. I don’t mean you personally when I say you, of course. I’m talking about the United States. The promise was that NATO would not expand eastward, but it happened five times. There were five waves of expansion. We tolerated all that. We were trying to persuade them. We were saying, please don’t, we are as bourgeois now as you are. We are a market economy, and there’s no Communist party power. Let’s negotiate.

Moreover, I have also said this publicly before, there was a moment when a certain rift started growing between us. Before that, Yeltsin came to the United States. Remember, he spoke in Congress and said the good words, “God bless America.” Everything he said were signals. “Let us in.” Remember the developments in Yugoslavia before the Yeltsin was lavished with praise? As soon as the developments in Yugoslavia started, he raised his voice in support of Serbs, and we couldn’t but raise our voices for Serbs in their defense. I understand that there were complex processes underway there. I do. But Russia could not help raising its voice in support of Serbs because Serbs are also a special and close to US nation with orthodox culture and so on. It’s a nation that has suffered so much for generations.

Well, regardless, what is important is that Yeltsin expressed his support. What did the United States do? In violation of an international law and the UN Charter, it started bombing Belgrade. It was the United States that let the genie out of the battle. Moreover, when Russia protested and expressed its resentment, what was said? The UN Charter and international law have become obsolete. Now, everyone invokes international law, but at that time they started saying that everything was outdated. Everything had to be changed. Indeed, some things need to be changed as the balance of power has changed. It’s true, but not in this manner. Yeltsin was immediately dragged through the mud accused of alcoholism, of understanding nothing, of knowing nothing. He understood everything, I assure you.

I became president in 2000. I thought, okay, the Yugoslav issue is over, but we should try to restore relations. Let’s reopen the door that Russia had tried to go through, and moreover, I said it publicly. I can’t reiterate. At a meeting here in the Kremlin with the outgoing president, Bill Clinton, right here in the next room I said to him, I asked him, Bill, do you think if Russia asked to join NATO, do you think it would happen? Suddenly he said, you know, it’s interesting. I think so. But in the evening when we met for dinner, he said, you know, I’ve talked to my team. No, it’s not possible now. You can ask him. I think he will watch our interview. He’ll confirm it. I wouldn’t have said anything like that if it hadn’t happened. Okay. Well, it’s impossible now. …

Nevertheless, after that we tried to build relations in different ways. For example, the events in the Middle East in Iraq. We were building relations with the United States in a very soft, prudent, cautious manner. I repeatedly raised the issue that the United States should not support separatism or terrorism in the North Caucasuses, but they continued to do it anyway. And political support, information support, financial support, even military support came from the United States and its satellites for terrorist groups in the Caucasuses.

… The third moment is a very important one, is the moment when the US missile defense system was created. The beginning. We persuaded for a long time not to do it in the United States. Moreover, after I was invited by Bush Junior’s father, Bush Senior to visit his place on the ocean, I had a very serious conversation with President Bush and his team. I proposed that the United States, Russia and Europe jointly create a missile defense system that we believe if created unilaterally threatens our security, despite the fact that the United States officially said that it was being created against missile threats from Iran. That was the justification for the deployment of the missile defense system. I suggested working together. Russia, the United States, and Europe. They said it was very interesting. They asked me, “Are you serious?” I said, “Absolutely.” … In the end, they just told us to get lost.

… Now, about NATO’s expansion to the east. Well, we were promised no NATO to the east, not an inch to the east, as we were told, and then what? They said, “Well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.” So there were five waves of expansion, the Baltic states, the whole of Eastern Europe, and so on. And now I come to the main thing. They have come to do Ukraine ultimately. In 2008 at the summit in Bucharest, they declared that the doors for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO were open. Now about how decisions are made there. Germany, France seemed to be against it, as well as some other European countries. But then as it turned out later, President Bush, and he’s such a tough guy, a tough politician, as I was told later, “He exerted pressure on us and we had to agree.” It’s ridiculous. It’s like kindergarten. Where are the guarantees? What kindergarten is this? What kind of people are these? Who are they? You see, they were pressed, they agreed,

And then they say, “Ukraine won’t be in the NATO. You know?” I say, “I don’t know. I know you agreed in 2008. Why won’t you agree in the future?” “Well, they pressed us then.” I say, “Why won’t they press you tomorrow, and you’ll agree again?” Well, it’s nonsensical. Who’s there to talk to? I just don’t understand. We are ready to talk, but with whom? Where are the guarantees? None. So they started to develop the territory of Ukraine. Whatever is there, I have told you the background, how this territory developed, what kind of relations there were with Russia.

… This is the southeast of Ukraine. This is a large number of people. And it was very difficult to dissuade this electorate, which had a positive attitude towards Russia. Viktor Yanukovych came to power and how? The first time he won after President Kuchma they organized a third round, which is not provided for in the Constitution of Ukraine. This is a coup d’état. Just imagine someone in the United States wouldn’t like the outcome.

TC, hopeful: In 2014?

Putin: Before that. No, this was before that. After President Kuchma, Viktor Yanukovych won the elections. However, his opponents did not recognize that victory. The US supported the opposition, and the third round was scheduled. What is this? This is a coup. The US supported it and the winner of the third round came to power. Imagine if in the US something was not to someone’s liking, and the third round of election, which the US Constitution does not provide for was organized.

Nonetheless, it was done in Ukraine. Okay. Viktor Yushchenko, who was considered the pro-Western politician, came to power. Fine. We have built relations with him as well. He came to Moscow with visits. We visited Kiev. I visited too. We met in an informal setting. If he’s pro-Western, so be it. It’s fine. Let people do their job. The situation should have developed inside the independent Ukraine itself. As a result of Kuchma’s leadership, things got worse and Viktor Yanukovych came to power after all. Maybe he wasn’t the best president and politician. I don’t know. I don’t want to give assessments. However, the issue of the association with the EU came up. We have always been lenient to this, suit yourself. But when we read through the treaty of association, it turned out to be a problem for us, since we had the free-trade zone and open customs borders with Ukraine. Which under this association had to open its borders for Europe, which would’ve led to flooding of our market. We said, “No, this is not going to work. We shall close our borders with Ukraine then. The customs borders that is.”

Yanukovych started to calculate how much Ukraine was going to gain, how much to lose, and said to his European partners, “I need more time to think before signing.” The moment he said that the opposition began to take destructive steps, which were supported by the West. It all came down to Maidan and a coup in Ukraine.”

Shortly before invading Ukraine, Russia issued an ultimatum to the West. He demanded NATO membership be withdrawn from all of the former Soviet states. Biden did not agree. Are these the negotiations to which Trump alludes?