Independence Day
Putin is pushing Trump to liberate himself from Ukraine. The US President must refuse
Much of this post will be speculative and exploratory.
However, even though I use this platform extemporaneously, I’ll still try to hold to basic analytical principles, differentiating fact from opinion from unknowns.
I have been trying to think through the strategic reasoning of Russia attacking Ukraine, yet again—and this time reportedly the heaviest bombardment yet—shortly after a conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump.
Russian messaging usually deliberately signals different things simultaneously to different audiences. However, it should be contextualised in what we know about political priorities, existing FIMI campaigns, actors, the information environment, and more.
Image: Kyiv this morning (Insayder UA Telegram channel, 4 July)
I am not convinced that Putin’s aim was to humiliate Trump personally with the attack. I think it was in part more subtle: Putin is unlikely to want to hurt Trump personally, but is more likely intent on pressing home the notion that Russia has no choice but to deal with the ‘core reasons’ of the crisis. The Kremlin’s framing of the call suggests that Moscow highly likely wants to delineate Ukraine from personal relationships, and relegate Ukraine to a mere minor piece of business that Moscow, in its perverse argumentation, has to deal with itself, external to other parts of Russia-US ties.
This, in many ways, is likely designed to help Trump: it gives the US President scope to recuse himself from Ukraine, segregating it as an insignificant formality that is separate from Trump’s other achievements. It is a bizarre and perverse offer of independence on 4 July, the offer to liberate Trump from his moral obligation to Ukraine and the world.
I suspect that it is highly likely—although I have no good data evidence yet to hand—that Russian assets are targeting MAGA and isolationist groups with warnings about the United States’ continuing involvement in Ukraine, pushing them to put pressure on Trump to stop support for Ukraine. This for me highly likely explains the return of Putin spokesman Kirill Dmitriev and ‘philosopher’ Aleksandr Dugin to prominence in Russian messaging.
Delineating the ‘Ukraine question’
The heavy bombing of Ukraine also last night signals to Trump personally, and to the world, that no negotiations can stop the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine, while also arguing that the White House is separate from Moscow’s dealings with Ukraine.
By extension, this adds to Russia’s subtle but long-term message that the United States are morally and politically separate from Moscow’s intentions against Europe, the Kremlin’s key target.
It also signals to Russia and to the world that Putin is at least equal, and not subordinate to, the US President.
So, as I have argued, this has little, and at the same time everything, to do fundamentally with Ukraine.
But, as always, the Ukrainian people bear the brunt.
We shall see tonight how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy handles his scheduled call with Trump. As I write this, I am watching Fox video showing Trump express his displeasure following the attack. But we shall see.
Russia cannot lose
The Russian attack is almost certainly also trying to break Trump’s resolve on trying to fix the Ukraine war, pushing him to drop it and instead pursue other means to secure his Nobel Peace Prize.
What is notable is the coincidence of other messaging arguing that Russia cannot lose the war on Ukraine, also arguing that Kyiv cannot win:
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly told senior European officials that Beijing does not want Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, because that could free Washington to come after it next.
Historian and journalist Owen Matthews has argued that Putin will not concede defeat over Ukraine in this Telegraph piece.
Matthews also retweeted a demand by Dmitriev that it is time to resist the ‘idiotic’ defence against Russia with ‘dialogue and realism’, at a sensitive time when Dmitriev is being deployed as a key information asset against Europe and the United States.
Highly-questionable journalist Leonid Ragozin has highlighted Russia’s ‘successful and rapidly accelerating offensive’, implying that Ukraine should admit defeat.
This recent Die Welt article arguing that Ukraine should concede defeat.
I am not claiming that these sources are acting directly on behalf of the Kremlin, or are coordinating (retweets are, of course, only serendipitous).
However, it is almost certain that Moscow wants the ‘Ukrainian question’, as it calls it, to be segregated from other issues of global concern. The attack on Ukraine last night only highlights that FIMI never works in a vacuum, and shows how kinetic activity works alongside messaging to enhance impact.
However, we must resist the temptation to give up resolve, or allow claims about supposed Russian successes to deflect us from the singular point: this is not about Ukraine. It is about Europe. Moscow is determined to weaken, infiltrate, and subjugate the entire European security architecture. It is about determining UK policy, weakening our defences, causing sabotage, exploiting cyber vulnerabilities, murdering our citizens on our streets. This war will go on until we can understand that Russia can lose, and until we summon the courage to see that happen. That is true independence.