Reportedly, Russians suddenly had a change of heart after Trump was confirmed as the winner of 2024 U.S. presidential elections: Russian propagandists, who were positively inclined towards Trump, began expressing doubts that his presidency will be good for Russia.
After Trump’s victory speech, where he unexpectedly changed his tune from “I’ll end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours” to “I’ll ensure the drop in oil prices and Russia won’t be able to continue the war”, the first prominent voice to doom-monger was Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska.
“Looks like $50 oil will be everywhere by May [2025],” posted Deripaska.
In his speech, Trump said that the U.S. has more oil than Saudi Arabia — and even more than Russia, and promised to bring down the oil prices.
By the looks of it, Russians already had some talks through trusted channels with Trump’s administration-elect, and what they’ve heard didn’t inspire them — so the Russian propaganda was quickly ordered to put on brakes and don’t peddle Trump’s victory as much as in 2016 (it was an embarrassment how much Russians celebrated in November 2016 — and how disappointed they were with what Trump actually did).
It appears that Russians thought that Kamala Harris would win the race — they likely expected that Democrats would rig the election to stay in power, even if they were losing (that’s what Putin would certainly do) — and preparing to scream “election fraud” and cause mass protests, using Russia-recruited operatives in the U.S. to stir civil unrest.
But now, with Trump confidently winning and Harris calling to uphold the choice of the American people, this task looks insurmountable.
Today, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a long phone conversation with Donald Trump — while the Kremlin hasn’t officially sent Trump greetings with his victory.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov explained that Putin didn’t congratulate Trump because the U.S. was “an unfriendly country”.
“I had an excellent call with President Trump,” wrote Zelenskyy.
“We agreed to maintain close dialogue and advance our cooperation. Strong and unwavering U.S. leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace.”
The phrase “just peace” is Zelenskyy’s code word for “no territorial concessions to Russia”.
Previously, Trump promised to end spending money on Ukraine — but earlier he spoke about the idea of assistance in the form of lend-lease: Ukraine would get military aid on the same conditions as the Soviet Union in WW2.
In other words, America would continue sending the aid, but Ukraine would owe America money for that. So, ideally, the U.S. would give Ukraine what it needs to kick Russia out of Ukraine — and Ukraine would pay back when it can.
Meanwhile, the U.S. would be able to update its own weaponry and get ready to deflect the WW3 from the position of strength, not weakness — while sending its old machinery and equipment to Ukraine for utilization.
Reportedly, Trump got sizable donations to his campaign from American weapon manufacturers. Weapons is something that America still makes on its own soil.
The fact of Russia not feeling too optimistic now about Trump’s upcoming presidency was immediately confirmed by the frosty post by Russia’s foreign ministry:
By the sound of it, whatever message Russia got through the grapevine from Trump’s administration-elect, it turned them grumpy.
Trump promised “to solve the Ukrainian war” before his inauguration, let’s monitor what’s happening.
One thing for sure, he didn’t manage to do it “in 24 hours after getting elected”.
If oil prices are the key strategy, this could take another year.
Maybe there is something else we don’t know about.
Featured image: AI art
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