The incoming Trump administration fills Russian state TV propagandists with glee. In mid-November, when president-elect Donald Trump started to announce his future appointees, state TV host Olga Skabeeva gushed, “All of them are totally wonderful!”
Evgeny Popov, Skabeeva’s husband and the co-host of Russia’s 60 Minutes, concurred, describing Trump’s picks as his “radical dream team” and gleefully noting, “All of them personally despise Zelensky.” He cautiously added, “They aren’t friends of Russia, except for Tulsi Gabbard.”
For years, Gabbard’s propensity for spouting talking points that neatly aligned with the Kremlin’s agenda was seen as a boon for Moscow, with state TV host Vladimir Solovyov referring to the former congresswoman as “our girlfriend” and agreeing with pundits who described her as “Putin’s agent.”
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Her planned appointment is not the only one that is being celebrated in Russia. Putin’s mouthpieces are even more excited about Trump’s choice of an FBI director—Kash Patel.
Patel, a lawyer and conspiracy theorist, served in roles at the National Security Council, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense during Trump’s previous term.
During Sunday’s broadcast of a state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov—a program that Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly watches on a regular basis—host Vladimir Solovyov rejoiced about Trump’s picks.
“What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! Not with respect to Ukraine, but as far as everything else goes. If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great!” he said.
After airing a clip of Patel threatening to upend the FBI’s operations, Solovyov continued, “Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, is simply on fire... He’s tremendous! Really, really good.”
In 2023, Andrey Sidorov, Dean of World Politics at the Moscow State University, vocally pined for Trump’s return. Appearing on The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, he said, “Trump is coming, think of him as you will. I always saw him and still see him as a destroyer of America.” During Sidorov’s recurring appearances on Solovyov’s show, he repeatedly relished the potential dividends Russia may reap from Trump’s return.
The rhetoric of Russia’s leading experts has shifted from their earlier anticipation that Trump would allow Moscow to retain parts of Ukraine it declared as part of Russia—despite the apparent inability of the Russian Army to conquer them through conventional warfare—and potentially lift most sanctions.
Now Sidorov and others believe that portions of Ukraine and even Ukraine’s capitulation would not be enough, and Trump doesn’t have anything to offer that would be valuable enough to make Russia stop its invasion. Sidorov, Solovyov and many other premier propagandists continue to assert that Ukraine as a whole should cease to exist, with its territories being absorbed by the Russian Federation.
During last week’s Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, Henry Sardaryan, Dean of the School of Governance and Politics at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, explained that Russians are united by their common goal of restoring and expanding the Russian empire—and nothing less will do.
This way of thinking explains the Kremlin’s decision to target Ukraine’s city of Dnipro with the Oreshnik ballistic missile, armed with conventional warheads. State TV’s pundits explained what this strike was meant to accomplish, describing it as a tool of psychological warfare.
During last week’s appearance on 60 Minutes, Vitaly Tretyakov, Dean of the Moscow State University’s School of Television, explained, “One Oreshnik is worth 1,000 words... We should psychologically destabilize the nations. Oreshnik is great for this.”
Appearing on Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, head of RT Margarita Simonyan reiterated her belief that the war will end with a nuclear “missile ultimatum” and not with negotiations. She predicted that the United States “will blink first,” especially since America will be immersed in the upcoming turmoil of Trump’s second term, exacerbated by his dangerously eccentric appointees.
Russia’s experts and propagandists place their hopes on America’s internal upheaval and withdrawal from its position of global leadership—with Ukraine’s subsequent collapse as a highly-coveted bonus.
