Five weeks ago, Russia Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, handed a routine speech that exploits the United States « hegemonic, selfish » at the head of the « collective West ». Since then, the 74 -year -old veteran world view has undergone some changes in the head.
In an interview on Russian state television on Sunday, Mr. Lavrov listed the evils that Europe – Netician – had caused the world. The United States, according to its explanation, had gone from the evil Master to Innocent Bystander.
« Colonization, wars, crusaders, the Crimean War, Napoleon, World War I, Hitler, » said Lavrov. « If we look at history in retrospective, the North -Americans did not play any instigations, much less incendiary. »
As President Trump decades of U.S. foreign policy upside down, another dizzying swing in Russia, both in the Kremlin and on state -controlled television: the United States, the new message, is not so bad at the end.
Almost during the night, it is Europe, not the United States, which has become the source of instability in Russian narration. In its weekly tent program on the Rossiya-1 Sunday night, the Dmitri Kisleyov anchor described the « War Party » in Europe as prominent by the « Grand Troika » of the United States, Russia and China that will form « the new structure of the world. »
For more than a decade, the United States were the main bogeyman of Kremlin’s propaganda machine: the « hegemon », the « puppeteer » and the « teacher in the ocean ». He was seeking the destruction of Russia by promoting Europeans, Ukrainians and terrorists in conflict with Moscow.
After Mr. Trump’s return to the White House, Russian officials said he would not change much.
« The difference, not the terminology, is small, » said Mr. Lavrov in that January 30 speech, comparing the administrations of Trump and Biden.
But then the telephone call arrived on February 12 between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, conversations between the White House and Kremlin in Saudi Arabia, the United Nations vote in which America was revealed with Russia and the President Volodymyr Zelensky’s President of Ukraine in the Oval Office last week.
In a matter of weeks, it was clear that Trump’s second presidency had the potential to provide much more a pro-russian foreign policy than the first.
Putin has led the tone change. The leader that before gain Last week, led by the United States to try to « dismember and loot Russia » proposed that the United States mini rare rare metals and help develop aluminum production in Siberia. He was part of Mr. Putin’s dissemination to Mr. Trump, as he struck the richness of Russian resources.
On Friday, hours before Mr. Trump snatched Mr. Zelensky in the White House, Mr. Putin sounded his new pro-American message in the poor probability of places: the annual meeting of the Russian Domestic Intelligence Agency, the FSB, which has been at the forefront of the Russian shadow war against the West.
Putin said talks with Trump’s administration « inspires certain hopes », praised him for his « pragmatism », and asked spies to resist attempts to « disturb or compromise the dialogue that has begun. »
The Whiplash in links to Washington was so strong that Sunday Russian state television showed a journalist asking the Kremlin spokesman how it was possible that « a couple of months ago we publicly said that we were almost enemies. »
« In fact, this could not have been imagined, » said spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov, marveling at the turn. North -American foreign policy, he added, now « coincides with our vision in many ways. »
Kremlin’s message manufacturers are struggling to help the Russians make sense of all this. Some commentators are daring the historical precedent, promenade With regard to the refusal of Catherine The Great to help Britain put the North -American Revolution. Others say it is the North -American voter who changed.
« The American People got tired of the global empire, » a state of state television conversation Stalwart, the filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov, explained Last week.
In an interview with The New York Times, Yevgen Popov, which, « 60 minutes », is the most popular daily political program on Russian state television, insisted that the conversation to cooperate with the United States was not extraordinary because North -American companies had done businesses in the Soviet Union even in the depths of the Cold War.
« These are quite natural processes here, » said Popov. « We want peaceful, constructive and pragmatic and, most importantly, equal relationships with the US »
Still, Mr. Popov said that North -American weapons were killing Russian soldiers on the Battle Fields of Ukraine, and he did not believe that there could soon be a friendly relationship with a country that « the tanks fired on our people. »
Some guests in their program have gone further. Aleksei Zhuravlyov, at firefire legislator well -known To threaten the United States with nuclear annihilation, he told the « 60 minutes » last week that Russia could « make friends with America and govern the world. »
« Trump needs us », Mr. Zhuravlyov he said. “Do we need Trump? We do it. Do our interests match? They do it. Against who? Against the European Union. «
Russia’s interest in stopping with the United States is an unpleasant respect for the country and extensive personal bonds, especially between the cultural and commercial elite. Ivan I. Kurilla, a scholar of American-Russia relations at the Wellesley College, said that Russian and Soviet rulers saw that the United States saw the United States as a nation worth emulating, either in its economic capacity or its exchange on the world stage.
« This duality of the vision of America is so long, » said Kurilla, who was a professor at the European University of St. Petersburg until last year.
Popov, who used to be a Russian state television correspondent in New York, marked some of the things he believed that Russia and the United States have in common: an executive fort, protectionist policies, large armies, « more or less » market economies and powerful police agencies.
« We both have a police state in the good sense of the word, » Popov said in a video call last week while heading through Moscow’s traffic. He concluded, directing to the North -Americans: « If you want to understand what the Russians think, look in the mirror. »
The sudden perspective of improving the bonds with the United States encouraged the Russian public, which the chicks say that it is becoming more and more eager to end the war in Ukraine and see negotiations with Washington as a prerequisite.
The Levada Center, an independent survey based in Moscow, found In February, 75 percent of the Russians would support an immediate end of the war, the highest reading since 2023, and 85 percent approved talks with the United States. The hopes of sanctions relief and the return of American investment helped increase the Russian values market up to 10 percent after Trump-Putrin’s call on February 12.
For some of the most fervent supporters of the Russian war, Washington’s embrace has had a betrayal, as Mr. Putin has long described the invasion as a war of representation against the North -American aggression. In Telegram’s social messaging application, Russia’s Pro-Guerra Bloggers surprised Mr. Putin’s proposal last week to cooperate with American companies to extract the country’s natural resources.
A nationalist telegram block with more than one million followers, two major, inquire How to talk about « the bad desire of the damn Yankees to steal Russia’s natural resources » had become the discussion of « mutually beneficial cooperation with North -Americans. »
But for Mr. Putin himself, there may be an internal consistency in the swing to Washington. It has generally avoided the labeling of the United States in general as the enemy of Russia.
Rather, Mr. Putin has said he is the western « neoliberal elite » who seeks to impose his « strange » values on the world and seeks the destruction of Russia, while representing North -American conservatives as friends in Russia. It is a mirror image of the Soviet Union propaganda troops, when North -American progressives were thrown as Moscow allies.
« In the United States » Mr. Putin said in 2022« There is a very strong part of the audience that maintains traditional values and they are with us. We know that. »
Milana Mazaeva and Alina Lobzina contributed to reporting.
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