Astute observers can read between the lines and discern Russia’s displeasure with him too.
Andrew Korybko
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s first press conference of the year in late January touched upon a lot of topics, importantly including
the Europeans’ plot to subvert Trump’s Ukrainian peace plan. According
to him, the UK “is speaking increasingly more often on behalf of the EU”
and therefore plays a leading role in these efforts, “which boil down
to one thing – an immediate ceasefire complemented with legal security guarantees for Ukraine. The question is what these security guarantees concern.”
As Lavrov sees it, the purpose is “the preservation of the current Nazi regime”,
which “will never legally recognise Crimea, Novorossiya and Donbass as
Russia…And a ceasefire along the current line of contact, following
which ‘the West will help,’ is unacceptable to us because they will
build bases there.” In that scenario, “[France and the UK] will deploy a multinational force
in Ukraine, build a network of military hubs (bases) there… and pump
more weapons into Ukraine to create threats for the Russian Federation.”
In
pursuit of these goals, they’re trying “to convince Trump (of their
merits) and (then) let him force Putin to accept it, and that they will
all go for it” once that happens. “Trump’s idea, which we discussed and
supported in Anchorage, has been categorically rejected by that elite
European group.” Lavrov didn’t mention it, but Trump hasn’t pushed back
against the Europeans’ subversion of his Ukrainian peace plan, which was
much more to Russia’s liking and at least presumably declared an intent
to resolve root issues.
This observation strongly suggests
that he’s once again falling under others’ influence, in this case
warmongering Europeans and their neoconservative allies in the US, perhaps after being misled into regarding Russia’s restraint
as a weakness that he can exploit to further his country’s zero-sum
interests. These interests are to coerce the maximum number of
concessions from Russia, ideally significant ones that weaken its
overall strategic position, which Putin still rejects since he sees no
reason to comply.
It’s in connection with this goal
that Lavrov’s warning about the US’ attempt to establish strategic
superiority over Russia is relevant. He also talked about this during
the same press conference. The pertinence is that neutralizing Russia’s
nuclear second-strike capabilities through the four interconnected means
that he touched upon and which were analyzed here
might make such concessions more likely. Russia is capable of retaining
these capabilities, however, so that goal won’t be achieved in this
way.
Therefore, the US’ only recourse for furthering these
zero-sum interests (if Trump remains under the influence of warmongering
Europeans and their neoconservative allies in the US) is to perpetuate
the conflict in parallel with intensifying secondary sanctions pressure,
both of which are presently occurring. Trump could have punished the
Europeans for subverting his Ukrainian peace plan agreed upon in
Anchorage or at least told them to stop subverting it, but he’s thus far
done neither to Russia’s chagrin.
It can’t be ruled out that he
might one day do so, yet for the time being, Russia is rightly skeptical
of his intentions but also doesn’t want to risk offending him and
consequently making the worst-case scenario of him doubling down on the
conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy by openly expressing such sentiment.
That explains why Lavrov only criticized the Europeans during his press
conference and not Trump. Astute observers, however, can read between
the lines and discern Russia’s displeasure with him too.