Putin Is Banking On a Trump Win for His New World Order
Donald Trump’s nickname in the Kremlin? The American Gorbachev. Officials believe his chaos will be the downfall of the US.
By Mikhail Zygar
Vanity Fair, June 25, 2024
Idon’t know which moment in American history Donald Trump imagines when he says, “Make America great again.” He has never given a clear answer in any speech or interview. But I know exactly which moment Vladimir Putin imagines in his own vision for Russian greatness. It is February 1945, when Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill divided the world in Crimea.
Three months remained before the surrender of Nazi Germany, but it was clear that the Allies were winning. To determine what the world would look like after the defeat of the Third Reich, the US president, British prime minister, and Soviet leader went to the city of Yalta, a resort area in Crimea. Stalin achieved everything he wanted: He convinced his then allies that he should have his own “sphere of influence,” which included all of Eastern Europe—Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the former Czechoslovakia, and the former Yugoslavia. The leaders also devised the United Nations Security Council, on which they secured permanent member seats for their countries.
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The fantasies of Kremlin strategists have developed like this: A new Yalta Conference with Putin and Trump might not necessarily take place in Crimea. For greater symbolism, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, roughly equidistant from Russia and the US, would be more suitable. My sources in Moscow, who wish to remain anonymous for security reasons, suggest that such a summit could look good on Fiji. The Pacific archipelago is conveniently equidistant from Russia and the US.
Putin’s entourage understands that despite his ambitions, he is not like Stalin in 1945, and today’s Russia is no match for the Soviet Union. Therefore, the dreams of the current Kremlin inhabitants suggest that another participant in the new “Big Three” should be China, represented by Xi Jinping. They believe that the real Cold War is beginning between China and the US, so the upcoming “Yalta: Fiji” should formulate the rules of this confrontation. And Putin is ready to be content with the role of the third partner, a kind of modern-day Churchill. Of course, he wants to secure his place on the global board of directors that is the UN Security Council and expects to be allotted his sphere of influence: the countries of the former Soviet Union.
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For them, Mikhail Gorbachev is not a democrat or a reformer. For former KGB officers, Gorbachev is a demagogue and a narcissist who desperately wanted to please the audience but had no plan of action; a president whose policies were so chaotic that the empire began to fall apart, with different parts declaring their independence. This is wishful thinking, but Putin’s inner circle would like to believe that Trump could become just such a president.
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https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/6671dc515e0117f807af4351/master/w_1920,c_limit/VF102024_NewYalta_MarkHarris.jpg
You’re spot-on, Yavin4.
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