Trump and the Russian View of Victory in Ukraine

Hard Truths Spelled Out by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

On November 14, in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was interviewed by Russian reporter Marina Kim for the New World Project, a Russian organization formed to educate young Russians on the economic, social, cultural and political nature of the nations of the world and the formal and informal rules of their interaction.

For more than a decade, the vast majority of Americans and Western Europeans have heard nothing but Ukrainian government, US government, and captive US and Western media propaganda on Russia, Ukraine, and especially the Ukraine War. There is no field of competition—business, sports, military,  international trade, foreign policy, or any other endeavor where ignorance is a competitive advantage. The Bible, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and scores of others advise that accurate knowledge of competitors and your own capabilities are essential for success. In war, the sure way of tragedy is to underestimate your enemies and embrace self-deceived over-confidence in your own capabilities. In international relations, the only real success is long-term peace. Winning wars may be necessary to achieve peace, but wise leaders know that long-term stability and peace, which bring security and prosperity, are the real goal.

Hence knowing how the Russians think, what they are thinking, and what is important to them are essential to establishing  real and lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.

Donald Trump can be tough but tough is not sufficient for bringing peace to Ukraine. The Russians are confident in their military capabilities and have some undeniable military and technological  advantages. Trump’s real strength is that he knows that successful negotiations depend on understanding the Russians and what is most important to them. Moreover, peace is going to be advantageous for Russia and the United States, and especially for the Ukrainian people. It will, in fact, be advantageous to the world. Those whose hubris insists on a victory that humiliates Russia are completely and dangerously out of touch with reality.

Readers and US decision makers should profit from hearing the Russian view of things from Russia’s internationally esteemed Sergey Lavrov, who has been Russian Foreign Minister for over 20 years. Below are the beginning and selected interesting paragraphs of his November 14 interview in Moscow.

Question: “Mr. Lavrov, thank you for accepting our proposal to speak for the New World project. We” are working online to tell people about the contours of the new world we are living in. Our program is designed for young people. We tell them about the structure of the new world and the rules and standards it will be based on.”

Sergey Lavrov: “Do you know all that?”

Question: “No, but we discuss it with experts and decision-makers. We have analyzed our audience’s views on who their heroes are, who they would listen to, and who makes decisions. The number one on that list is President Vladimir Putin, followed by Sergey Lavrov.”

“Over the past few decades, our diplomacy has been at its finest and enjoyed prestige worldwide, thanks to your team and you personally as its leader. Do you, as minister and graduate of  MIGMO (the Moscow Institute of International Relations), regard the current developments as predictable or surprising?”

Sergey Lavrov: “Expectations are not part of the diplomatic profession. They are the domain of political analysts. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Francis Fukuyama declared the “end of history.” He said that he did not expect but was confident that liberal democracy would rule the world in all countries ever after. So, it is for political analysts to fantasize and entertain expectations, while we must be guided by hard facts. However, we must do our best to strengthen our global standing if we want these facts to be acceptable to us. This is exactly what we are doing when we assert our right to protect our security, our allies, the people who are part of the Russian World and our compatriots.”

“We are doing this in Ukraine now. You can see the West’s reaction. I have no expectations whatsoever, and I will not try to express or even formulate them. We are doing practical work, namely, ensuring Russia’s foreign policy interests at a time when our men and women are fighting in the Special Military Operation.”

“Our main task now is to achieve all the goals formulated by President Vladimir Putin. You are aware of the West’s expectations. They are speculating about stopping the hostilities at a certain line and coordinating a truce, so that 10 years from now they will decide who Crimea and Donbass belong to. This is coffee cup reading. I won’t engage in it. We have our tasks, and we will fulfil them.”

Question: “We sometimes go to the frontline. We have a crew there filming our stories. People there are closely monitoring international relations and your statements. They have a great deal of respect for you. Our men and women there would like to see the image of victory which they are fighting for. Do you have this image as an individual and minister?”

“What is the image of victory for Russia now?”

Sergey Lavrov: “Everyone in Russia has the same understanding of victory. It is victory as the ultimate outcome, and the brightest example is May 9, 1945. I have no doubt whatsoever that our heroes, who are on the offensive now to push the enemy out of our historical territories, draw inspiration above all from the heroism of their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers.”

Question: “We are trying to build, understand and gauge the contours, the outlines of the present-day world order. What could it represent in the next ten, 20 or 25 years? What will the political landscape look like?

Sergey Lavrov: “This question is not for me. Our job is to assert and promote Russia’s interests in keeping with its Constitution as well as the objectives defined by President Vladimir Putin. This goes beyond Ukraine and applies to Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept in general. Promoting the concept of a Greater Eurasian Partnership is part of an effort to enable all structures and countries across Eurasia to work more closely together, exchange their integration practices, harmonize and coordinate their projects, and engage in major infrastructure undertakings such as the well-known North-South International Transport Corridor. This also includes linking Indian ports with the ports in Russia’s Far East, and the Northern Sea Route, too.”

“God gave us one continent, and we share it. This continent possesses immense and, in fact, the biggest natural resources, while several millennia-old civilizations inhabit it. Failing to benefit from these competitive advantages would be a mistake. We are establishing ties and promoting dialogue. If we succeed in fulfilling the plans we have, the Greater Eurasian Partnership will offer a solid foundation and serve as an economic and transport backbone for what President Vladimir Putin called a new Eurasian security architecture.”

“We can see through what the Americans want. Sitting somewhere overseas, they believe that they are beyond the reach; while leaving it to Europe to overcome the challenges they face in terms of encouraging and arming Ukraine to fight Russia, as well as footing the bill for the Middle East tragedy.”

Question: “BRICS has again become a popular issue online. Young people are looking at it, trying to understand what it is and how it will develop. It is even said that “everything will be BRICS,” meaning that everything will be good. It is an image of the new world order. You have mentioned certain structures that can ensure Eurasian security. Can such a structure be created within BRICS, or is BRICS not about security but mostly about the economy?”

Sergey Lavrov: “BRICS is about the new world order that is based on the main principle of the UN Charter—the sovereign equality of states. The group was formed naturally when the most rapidly rising economies recognized the expediency of coming together to see if they can use their economic achievements to work more effectively on the global scale by employing their contacts and influence.”

“Unlike the G7 and other institutions controlled by the West, such as the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO, BRICS has seen that everything the Americans control now was created many years ago and promoted as the global good, namely their concepts of globalization, the inviolability of property, fair competition, the presumption of innocence and so on—all those principles collapsed overnight when they decided to “punish” Russia.”

“The task of containing China was articulated by the Biden administration. I believe that it will remain a priority for the Trump administration, too. We are a current threat to them. Washington can’t allow Russia to prove that it is a strong player and undermine the West’s reputation. They don’t care about Ukraine. They only care about their reputation. They decided that Ukraine should have a government they like and didn’t expect anyone to protest. Russia? It’s a big country but it must be brought down a peg. That is what this is about rather than the future of the Ukrainian people. They don’t care about people.” End of interview quotes.

Commentary

It is obvious from this interview as well as speeches by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the entire Russian leadership distrusts American promises and diplomacy. Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush had developed a strong beginning of good relations with Soviet President Gorbachev. US-Russian relations, however, began to decline following the US and NATO bombing of Serbia and expansion of NATO in 1999 under President Bill Clinton.

The 2008 proposal under George W. Bush to make Ukraine and Georgia NATO members crossed a heavy Red Line for Russian national security. In February 2014, under the Obama Administration, the US State Department, CIA, British MI6, and George Soros NGO funding engineered a bloody “Maidan Revolution” that overthrew the pro-neutral elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Then VP Joe Biden was heavily involved.

This coup caused the secession of Russian-speaking and predominantly Russian ethnic Crimea and its accession to the Russian Federation. This cascaded into the attempted secession of the heavily Russian ethnic states of Donetsk and Lugansk (the Donbass Republics), setting off a civil war killing 14,000 people. Southern and eastern Ukraine are by state 60% to 90% Russian. The attempted “Ukrainization” and ethnic cleansing of the Russian minority was the cause of the civil war. The Minsk agreements of 2015 promised to give equal cultural, linguistic, and political rights to Russian-speakers and more autonomy to Donetsk and Lugansk, but this was never implemented. The Minsk agreement was formally betrayed by Ukraine in March 2022, and Ukrainian Army artillery bombardment of Russian ethnic civilians in Donetsk provoked Russian intervention on March 24, 2022. The propaganda that the Russian “invasion” was “unprovoked” is a lie.  German and French leaders have since confessed that the Minsk agreements only served to build up the Ukrainian Army for the invasion of Donetsk, Lugansk, and Crimea. Moreover, a peace agreement in April 2022 was cancelled by US and British authorities in order to continue the war to weaken Russia and overthrow Putin.   

Western propaganda that Ukraine is winning the war is now obviously false. Ukraine’s economy  and electrical infrastructure have been ruined, and the people  face a cold winter. The Ukrainian Army has been worn down and is near collapse. Replacement manpower is increasingly reluctant and scarce. The Russians have complete air, artillery, and logistical dominance, and are advancing steadily toward the Dnieper River and Kyiv. According to renowned military analyst and author Col. Douglas Macgregor (USA ret.), Ukrainian military deaths are over 600,000 and continuing at 2,000 per week. He estimates Russian dead at 60,000, which is a ten to one kill-ratio. The US and NATO have exhausted their military and financial resources. Many US and NATO weapons have proved unreliable in combat conditions and easily countered by Russian electronic warfare. Ukraine has no chance of winning. Continuing the war only brings more death and destruction. This is a tragedy that must be stopped.