It is highly likely that the agreement between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to carve up Ukraine and oust the indomitable Zelensky in the name of future “peace” was made in secret long before the spectacular clash at the White House. Françoise Thom writes that Trump’s America is accelerating the transformation of a democratic country into one inspired by the Putin model.
Most observers agree that the flogging of President Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28 was not the result of an impromptu clash between the mercurial American and the indomitable Zelensky, but that a trap had been set for the Ukrainian president, probably by US Vice President JD Vance, more capable of implementing an elaborate plan than the unpredictable Donald Trump. However, this public lynching has all the hallmarks of a special operation devised within the walls of the Kremlin. For the Kremlin has long dreamed of assigning to the West the task of imposing capitulation on the Ukrainians. The experience of Georgia shows that only a demonstrative abandonment by Western democracies will enable Moscow to install a Quisling government under the guise of “preserving peace”. This was the aim of the Minsk agreements: the Kremlin hoped that France and Germany would put pressure on Ukraine’s leaders to comply with Moscow’s demands. In November 2021, Lavrov tried to force the issue, but was bitterly disappointed when Paris and Berlin refused to play along.
Russian foreign policy is characterized by extraordinary perseverance. The project was not abandoned, but simply put on hold until a more favorable opportunity presented itself. That opportunity came with the arrival of the Trump administration in Washington. We have just witnessed an extraordinary episode in the psychological warfare waged by Russia against the Ukrainian people. The unfortunate Ukrainians had begun to hope again: for the past few days, things seemed to be looking brighter for the Ukrainian cause. The Istanbul negotiations had allegedly failed, Trump had seemingly decided to extend sanctions against Russia for another year, and finally, a rare metals agreement more acceptable to Ukraine was about to be signed in Washington. But instead of the expected inflection in Washington’s policy, a cataclysm occurred. The humiliation inflicted on Zelensky reflects not only Trump’s shocking boorishness and Vance’s devious perfidy: the ferocity of the Russian president’s American subcontractors stems clearly from Putin’s desire to crush his adversary in the same way that a gangster drowns in concrete the man who made him lose face. Trump and Vance have become the hitmen for Zelensky’s political assassination. Ukraine publicly abandoned by its main ally on the other side of the Atlantic, in the presence of a Russian journalist no less: this public performance allows Moscow to hope to proceed with the second phase of its plan, the installation of a “pacifist” stooge in power in Kyiv.
But there is more to it than that. The reason for the jubilation expressed by Russian propagandists at the mention of the Trump administration is not only the unilateral disarmament of the United States, which is blithely dismantling all the agencies charged with protecting it from outside interference – CIA, FBI – and shaking up the Pentagon with purges. Nor can it be explained solely by the promising prospect of American support for Putin’s crushing of Ukraine and subjugation of Europe.
The Putinization of America is the realization of a plan nurtured by Russian leaders since the mid-1990s. The originality of the Cold War lies in the fact that each protagonist aimed to transform the other from within: the USSR wanted to communize liberal democracies, while the latter wanted to implant democracy in the USSR. The collapse of the Communist regime was perceived by the Russian elites, especially the KGB and the GRU, as an intolerable victory for the Western camp. From the Yeltsin years onward, this core of diehards had only one idea: to undo the defeat, reconstitute the Soviet empire and inflict a mirror-image perestroika on the United States, leading to the liquidation of liberal democracy and the disintegration of the American state. Trumpism is the result of decades of effort, both in infiltrating the elites and American business, and in ideologically formatting the masses, persuading them that the American state is an enemy to be toppled.
The regime which is emerging in the United States has many similarities with a communist regime. We already have a personality cult. “A man like Trump only appears once or twice in the history of a country. We want Trump!” exclaims Steve Bannon, the ideologue of the MAGA movement. Secretary of State Marco Rubio does not dare open his mouth without referring to his president’s wise instructions, rather like a Maoist red guard quoting the thoughts of the Great Helmsman. We already have a crime of lese-majeste: that is precisely what the unfortunate Zelensky was accused of by Zhdanovian apparatchik JD Vance, accusations echoed in chorus by servile senators. Congress resembles Putin’s Duma, and has become a rubber-stamping chamber where everyone competes in obsequiousness in the presence of the leader. Republican Congressman Andy Ogles has just introduced a resolution in Congress authorizing the extension of the presidential term from eight to twelve years, meaning that, if the resolution were adopted, Trump could remain in office until January 2033, when he would be 86. Under Kash Patel’s leadership, the FBI is being transformed into a KGB-like instrument of repression of the opposition. As in the Soviet regime, priority is given to eradicating domestic opposition, deemed more dangerous than the external enemy. We can also observe in the United States a phenomenon characteristic of communist and post-communist regimes, which consists in blaming the predecessor for every conceivable sin. The current “deBidenization” is reminiscent of the imprecations against the Yeltsin regime on which Putin built his power. Similarly, the sudden change of alliances is unpleasantly reminiscent of a common practice in totalitarian regimes. Much has been said recently about Munich 1938. The analogy with the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939 is more apt.
Progress made in bringing the country to heel in six weeks is impressive. A climate of fear paralyzes the Senate, the media is intimidated or co-opted. History is blatantly being rewritten, Trump setting the example. Docility is the criterion for recruiting officials at all levels. Consent to participate in the lie has become a prerequisite to obtain a state position. The test question is: was the 2020 election stolen? To this question is added this one: who is responsible for the war in Ukraine? Woe to him who does not answer “Zelensky and Biden”. Like the Communist regime, the Trump administration has created a founding mythology of lies to which all public servants are forced to adhere. The purpose of those lies is not to convince. It is to convey the omnipotence of the regime, which can afford to defy the truth with impunity, which can force citizens to utter blatant falsehoods, thereby violating their conscience. Lying is a stain on the soul. Those who have participated in lying are like those who have been bitten by a vampire: they have only one desire left, to infect others with their evil, to drag others down with them, so as not to remain alone face to face with their debasement. The Trump administration is full of these half-zombies, conscious of their moral degradation, and supernaturally aggressive because of their intimate shame.
The fact that the American leaders chose to conduct this exchange with Zelensky publicly, rather than in a closed-door diplomatic setting, reveals more than anything how advanced their Putinization is. “This is going to be great television,” Trump said during the meeting. Like the men of the Kremlin, President Trump and his cronies are not shy of flaunting their ignominy in broad daylight. In their eyes, the unabashed display of their turpitude is an indication of their omnipotence. The lynching of Zelensky was reminiscent of propagandist Vladimir Soloviov’s talk shows prior to the Russian offensive in February 2022, when a howling pack of pseudo-experts was unleashed against a hapless Ukrainian, vociferating that Ukraine was going to be wiped off the map, annihilated, etc. Intoxicated with their sense of impunity, Trump and Vance do not understand that they themselves have fallen into a trap set by Putin. For Putin’s aim is to demonstrate that Russia has subjugated the United States, since American leaders have adopted his language and ways. Trump and Vance thought they were extracting a capitulation from Zelensky. In fact, they were publicly signing the United States’ capitulation to Russia.
She has a degree in classical literature and spent 4 years in the USSR from 1973 to 1978. She is an agrégée in Russian and teaches Soviet history and international relations at Paris Sorbonne.
