A jubilant mood in Russia, where the return of Donald Trump to the presidency was perceived as a prologue to Moscow’s triumph against Ukraine, has now been replaced with jittery anticipation in light of President Joe Biden’s reported approval for Kyiv to launch long-range missile strikes against Russian military targets.
State media’s talking heads initially dismissed the leak in the New York Times as a fake cooked up by “American propagandists.”
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Kristina Busarova and Roman Guz, hosts of the morning show At Dawn on the Solovyov Live channel, rejoiced on Monday over how dark it is in Ukraine because of Russia’s continued targeting of the country’s energy infrastructure. They gleefully described the weekend strikes as perhaps the biggest attack against Ukrainian infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion, relishing the idea of extended blackouts in the dead of winter.
But the joy was tempered by news that Ukraine might be finally allowed to strike back against the invaders and their North Korean cohorts on Russian territory. Busarova complained of a “restless” night caused by the revelations from the U.S., but repeatedly dismissed them as a possible hoax.
With an imperial attitude that is prevalent in the Russian media, Busarova repeatedly referred to Ukrainians as “the villagers” and speculated that the new reports were meant to counteract their despair caused by Trump’s election victory. “People there are just walking shadows, they are half-dead, the cannon fodder that understands they don’t have long to live on Ukrainian soil,” she said. Busarova scoffed at President Volodymyr Zelensky’s attempts to keep his country afloat and asserted, “This country [Ukraine] doesn’t even exist.”
Despite constantly claiming that the country Russia invaded isn’t even real, prominent propagandists fear that the first retaliatory strike with a long-range missile from their neighbors might target one of their studios—a concern that was voiced on state television in October by State Duma member Andrey Gurulyov.
During their show, Busarova and Guz comforted the audience by assuring them that even if this reporting was accurate, Trump will surely withdraw this permission as soon as he gets sworn in.
The host of state TV show 60 Minutes Olga Skabeeva went even further and claimed that Trump might forbid Ukraine to strike Russian targets with long-range missiles even now, before his presidential term officially starts. She didn’t explain the reasoning behind this assertion, apparently believing that rules no longer apply, and the incoming American president is empowered to rule with an iron fist before taking office.
Monday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes quoted Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., and Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene sharing their outrage against the reported permission for Ukraine to use long-range missiles for its retaliatory strikes, since Moscow firmly believes that its intended victims should not be allowed to defend themselves and enjoys support from Americans who share the same warped worldview.
During Monday’s broadcast of The Meeting Place, political scientist Bogdan Bezpalko argued that Trump will use Biden’s reported approval of using the long-range missiles against Russian targets to deny any further U.S. aid to the beleaguered Ukraine. Bezpalko speculated that Trump will tell the Ukrainian president that America has already provided all the support that it could and surmise: “Bro, you failed. Get out of here.”
Not a single talking head in Russia’s tightly controlled state media believes that Trump will help Kyiv—believing instead that he will help Russia to cement its conquests and restore its dominance over Ukraine. They predict that Russia will not respond to Biden’s reported decision in order not to interfere with Trump’s anticipated efforts to settle the conflict.
The attitude of “In Trump we trust” continues to permeate the Russian state media, with constant discussions about how much of Ukraine he is willing to hand over to the Kremlin.
Unlike Sylvester Stallone, who called Trump “the second George Washington,” Russian propagandists often call him America’s Boris Yeltsin, the last Soviet leader. They compare the current state of the United States to the last years of the Soviet Union, openly hoping that Trump will push the country over the edge—with Russia taking its spot and dominating global affairs for decades to come.
They argue that the anticipated resolution of the Ukrainian conflict will solidify Russia’s place in history as a winner and America as a geopolitical loser that will never recover from this anticipated defeat.
