President Trump’s announcement of immediate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine without any concessions from Moscow is setting the stage for the destruction of the post-World War II order and one of the greatest betrayals of an ally in American history.
In his statement, Trump quoted Putin on the virtue of “common sense,” showing he is dealing with a country he does not understand.
Russia’s leaders have created a regime based on organized crime and contempt for human life. Ukraine’s struggle is an attempt to break free of Russia’s control and adopt the West’s values. Under these circumstances, the role of common sense in Russia today is nonexistent.
Russia is a more repressive country today than it was three years ago.
The West has cut ties to Russia, but Russia has also rejected the West.
The change goes deeper than just the store shelves that are now filled with Chinese goods. Having attacked Ukraine and met resistance, Russia has fallen back on the pretense it is an embattled fortress.
To pursue its ends the Putin regime has turned the economy into a war machine, adopted a version of globalization based on theft and launched a campaign to indoctrinate young people and ensure cannon fodder for years to come.
Putin will be glad to manipulate Trump’s desire to reduce America’s global responsibilities, but if he can destroy Ukrainian nationhood with Trump’s help, the only thing the United States can count on is that his gratitude will be short lived.
The most striking change in Russia since 2022 is its transformation into a war machine.
Military factories facing large-scale orders for weapons production in the face of a labor shortage recruited 600,000 skilled employees at high wages.
This helped drive economic growth that has consistently confounded expectations. In 2023, the Russian economy grew by 3.6% against the January International Monetary Fund forecast of 0.3%, and in 2024, the growth rate may be 3.8% to 4.0% whereas experts had predicted just 1.3%.
If hostilities end, the pattern will be very difficult to change. In a meeting with workers last year at the Uralvagonzavod factory in Nizhny Tagil, Putin said the military-industrial complex could count on orders for the next five to 10 years.
The regime has also created a mercenary army composed of men from impoverished regions who have been persuaded to fight for salaries of about $2,000 a month.
The total compensation, including signup bonuses and death benefits is, in some cases, more than they could earn in 25 to 30 years working for the average wage in their region. In return, in many cases, they are selling their lives.
The existence of this pool of mercenaries encourages Russia to maintain a huge army.
If large numbers of battle-hardened mercenaries are abruptly discharged, they will return home to jobs that pay much less than what they received in the army, threatening social peace.
Besides transiting to a war economy, Russia is becoming the center of an international economic network operating beyond the control of Western institutions and laws.
The government now encourages companies to ignore intellectual property rights, allowing them to produce for free goods that normally require royalty payments. Companies that produced drugs, medical devices and other products were allowed to ignore patent laws and licensing agreements.
Western software is not only used illegally throughout Russia but also sold to customers in Africa and East Asia.
The lawlessness is not confined to commercial institutions.
NATO officials confirmed July 28 that US intelligence foiled a Russian plan to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, which produced artillery shells for Ukraine.
The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate European defense-industry executives who were supporting Ukraine, officials said. In July, a series of packages postmarked from Lithuania exploded in DHL cargo facilities in Britain and Germany and in a courier firm in Poland.
Western investigators said they believed the packages were a test of Russia’s ability to plant explosives on cargo airplanes bound for the United States and Canada.
James Appathurai, a NATO deputy assistant secretary general, said Jan. 28 the West is preventing Russians from committing acts of terrorism by “setting red lines at the highest level.”
This minimal deterrence, besides the fact it is unlikely to work, raises the question of why even plotting a terrorist act does not constitute the crossing of a red line.
Finally, the Putin regime is propagandizing the Russian population to support further military adventures in the years ahead.
Russians are confronted by “talk shows,” in reality indoctrination sessions, on all major television stations. They involve different personalities, but the message is always the same: Ukraine is a Nazi state and working with NATO to threaten Russia.
There are huge television screens in many official waiting rooms and canteens set up in front of rows of chairs. If a person decides to sit down, he is exposed to government propaganda.
The most important focus of indoctrination, however, is Russia’s youth.
They are assigned to weave camouflage nets and make candles for use in the trenches. On May 9, the day of victory in the Second World War, children dressed in military surplus and sang patriotic songs. In one Moscow school, children dressed up in pilots’ hats and blue and white naval shirts and organized themselves as if in artillery, naval and machine-gun units with appropriate insignia. They were inspected by a Ukraine war veteran.
Children are also being signed up on a mass basis for “Firsts,” a new organization similar to the Soviet Union’s Pioneers.
The Firsts escort elderly people across the street, tend monuments to World War II that exist in every Russian city and listen to inspirational talks by Ukraine war veterans.
Russia is organized for a long war of sabotage and destabilization against the West.
When Trump claims he wants to stop the killing by relying on the person responsible for it in the first place, he, in fact, shows he has no concern for will happen in the region at all.
Russians are describing rule by criminals as a new world order. In October, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russia-Ukraine war means the end of Western dominance is “irreversible.”
In the wake of nearly a million Russian and Ukrainian casualties in a war Putin instigated for no reason but to strengthen his hold on power, future expansion is the Putin regime’s only justification.
The most important thing standing in the way is Ukraine.
David Satter is the author, most recently, of “The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin.” He is vice chairman of the Remembrance Society, which honors the victims of totalitarianism.
