The hardening of US measures against Russia has caused disappointment and rage among Putin’s mouthpieces.
By Julia Davis, for CEPA
The mercurial nature of the US President Donald Trump seems to be driving the Kremlin’s leading mouthpieces mad. After a bewildering year veering between euphoria and despair, Russia’s propaganda commentariat has finally concluded that the administration is not a friend.
Appearing on the state TV program 60 Minutes on October 24, head of the National Energy Security Foundation Konstantin Simonov conceded: “Last spring and summer, many of my colleagues often said, ‘Trump doesn’t need Ukraine, he will withdraw from this conflict, he has more interesting topics to deal with, and everything will be handed to us on a silver platter.’ It isn’t going to happen, let’s understand it at long last.”
Host Olga Skabeeva observed that during the first nine months of his presidency, Russia had fallen in love with Trump. That reflected the belief in some quarters in Moscow that the American president would hand them Ukraine and relieve them of the consequences of their invasion. It’s worth noting that this never extended to respect for the US leader — government-run outlets incessantly and cruelly mocked the US leader and the First Lady.
Trump’s admirers might argue that he’s had the last laugh by masking his goals behind on-again, off-again pronouncements like the provision of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. And that the propagandists have looked slightly foolish as they rejoiced and exclaimed, “Perhaps Trump is ours and not theirs.” Their delight was short-lived. The news of the October 22 sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, was a bitter pill to swallow for state-funded outlets that had previously praised Trump as a brilliant businessman who would help realize Russia’s maximalist demands.
This egg-on-face sense of disappointment was nowhere more visible than with Vladimir Solovyov, the prominent and Kremlin-decorated state mouthpiece whose show ranks among the top three most-watched TV programs. The boisterous presenter had decided that the delivery of Tomahawks wouldn’t happen and had consistently hinted that Trump remained firmly in Russia’s pocket courtesy of a secret deal supposedly reached with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, during their August meeting. The sanctions announcement against Russia’s energy companies left Solovyov — and his talk of covert deals — in a shambles.
It’s not the first time Solovyov has been forced into a U-turn before his viewers and listeners, who number in the hundreds of thousands. On October 23, his radio show Full Contact, Solovyov furiously proclaimed that relations between Trump and Putin were now ruined: “The bromance is over!”
He demonstrated an updated Trump-o-meter, a popular meme in Russia, where the American president was downgraded from “our elephant,” depicted in a Russian military uniform, all the way down to “their pindos,” a derogatory slur Russians frequently use to insult Americans.
What’s next? Now that the pretense of Russia’s friendship with America is no longer useful, state TV’s propagandists — and Putin himself — are back to threatening the West with military force. As if on cue, during a meeting with the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, and other military commanders on October 26, Putin announced that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable Burevestnik missile and is getting ready to deploy it.
During multiple broadcasts, Solovyov repeatedly asserted, “They have to fear us,” as well as “We don’t need their love, we need their fear. Fear!” Appearing on The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov on October 24, military expert Mikhail Khodaryonok — previously considered by many to be a more measured pundit — proudly described himself and his fellow panelists as “rabid warmongers” and “nuclear maniacs.” He claimed that the West is forcing Russia to use nuclear weapons, and that it simply has no other choice.
The political scientist Sergey Karaganov, who heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, appeared on The Right To Know program with the same message. He argued that Westerners, especially Europeans, have lost a sense of “animal fear,” and it is now up to Russia to bring it back.
He asserted: “They have no intellectual functions, they have no sense of the Motherland, they have no sense of gender, they have no sense of love — they have nothing . . . they are the dregs of humanity.” Karaganov asserted that by making Westerners fear Russia, the Russians will be “saving them and the world.” He proudly concluded, “This is our historic mission.”
Karaganov surmised: “We have no other option. Either we will destroy ourselves and then destroy the world, or we will win and save humanity.”
By Julia Davis, for CEPA
Julia Davis is a columnist for The Daily Beast and the creator of the Russian Media Monitor. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild, and Women In Film.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
