Letter From the Editors
Picture the scene: A neighborhood bully demands protection money from a smaller kid. When the latter objects, the bully’s henchman tries to make him grovel. Some version of this scenario has unfolded in innumerable schoolyards, not to mention teen movies. But nobody expected it to play out in the Oval Office. Western and Russian media alike are abuzz about how Ukrainian President Zelensky was browbeaten by Donald Trump and JD Vance during a visit that was expected to mark a major step toward peace talks with Russia, as well as a signed agreement for the US to mine rare earth metals in Ukraine. In the end, neither of these results came to pass.
Columnist Gennady Petrov posed the question on everyone’s mind: “Why did it have to go down like that?” A colleague of ours who served for many years in the Soviet (and then Russian) Foreign Ministry explained that the Trump-Zelensky summit breached diplomatic protocol in two ways. First, the conversation took place with no interpreter – who could have managed the flow of words and helped cool tempers. Second, sensitive topics are normally discussed in a closed session, not in front of journalists.
Of course, there are emotional and political explanations too. Regarding the former, Petrov comments that both the US and Ukrainian leaders are showbiz figures who don’t like being upstaged. As for politics, he continues: “We can see Zelensky’s public flogging as a concession to Moscow and, at the same time, a black mark against him. The Kremlin has repeatedly hinted that it would prefer not to deal with him.” A different take: The aging Trump, impatient for a quick solution, “decided to effectively put an end to his peacemaking efforts, putting all the blame on Zelensky.”
In hindsight, a remark made by Kiev political adviser Mikhail Podolyak before the White House summit takes on an ironic ring. Asked by a Meduza interviewer whether Trump could be trusted, he replied: “Of course. . . . You just have to take into account Trump’s style: It’s characterized by information aggression and a desire to achieve goals in a short period of time.”
After a heady bout of that aggression, Zelensky was warmly welcomed in London by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The British leader had invited 14 leaders of NATO countries to assemble (in his own words) a “coalition of the willing” in support of Ukraine in the wake of Washington’s decision to freeze aid. Leonid Shestakov sarcastically refers to the leaders of this new coalition – England and France – as “Old World landowners,” suggestively borrowing the title of an 1835 Nikolai Gogol tale. Shestakov warns that Starmer’s initiative could drive a wedge not only between Europe and Washington, but within the EU itself: After all, staunch Russia supporters like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Fico, will surely oppose any new funding for Kiev.
Unlike her conservative colleagues in Eastern Europe, French right-wing firebrand Marine Le Pen criticized Trump for suspending military aid to Kiev, calling the decision “cruel to Ukrainian soldiers.” An NG editorial highlights a certain disruption here: “Marine Le Pen’s statement generally contradicts the stereotypical narrative about European politics that has developed in Russia in recent years.” According to that narrative, Moscow can count on understanding, if not outright sympathy, from “right-wing politicians, Euroskeptics, [and] defenders of traditional values. . . Le Pen’s statements are just one example of how, in politics, there are very few constants on which one can build a strategy.”
Unless, of course, that strategy is to disrupt the accustomed “constants” and rely on the raw instinct of self-preservation. Speaking of which: In the eponymous Gogol story, the landowners’ domestic bliss is ruined when their pet cat runs away from home and turns feral. In today’s retelling, who is the cat? Depends on who you ask.