The timid hopes of some Russian elites that Donald Trump would, for pragmatic reasons, come to an agreement with the Kremlin and fulfil most of Vladimir Putin’s conditions (for example, agreeing to hand over to Russia some of the Ukrainian territories not yet occupied by the Russian army) do not seem justified at the moment. Yet, the Russian president himself clearly used to entertain such hopes. Putin repeatedly called Trump «a brave man», and on Monday, the day of the US leader’s inauguration, he even convened a meeting of the Security Council, although such meetings are traditionally held on Fridays. It quickly became clear that the event had been organized as a curtsy to Trump: Putin congratulated the newly elected president on his victory and inauguration and once again called him a brave man.
Trump does not mind curtsying back to Putin: he calls him a «smart man» and speaks of good relations with the Russian leader. This can only give rise to even greater expectations on the part of the Russian leadership. However, Trump’s other statements do not look like compliments to Putin and the Kremlin at all. The US president says that Russia’s economy is already «failing» and threatens to introduce new sanctions in case the Kremlin proves uncooperative. All this contradicts both the Kremlin’s official position and Putin’s ultra-optimism regarding the state of Russian economy, as well as the rather widespread unofficial narratives about its strength. Trump also talks about how the USSR helped the US win the war and lost 60 million (sic!) people in the process. Consciously or not, he has hit another raw nerve for the Russian authorities, who like to point out that it was the Soviet Union that won World War II, with little help from the West. Kremlin officials have to respond to such «falsification of history» by Trump, but it is not Putin who is doing so, but his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. The top leadership prefers not to cross Trump. At the same time, the Russian elites, dissatisfied with the effects of sanctions that are slowly destroying the Russian economy, are signaling that they are ready to negotiate and stop at the line of contact. They are probably trying to convince the Russian president to do that as well.
At the moment, the Kremlin and Putin have found themselves at a critical junction: Trump is offering to end the war on terms that are not the worst for Russia, but he is doing so from a position of strength. The political style of Trump could not be more different from that of Putin. The head of the United States operates within the public sphere, exploiting the weaknesses of his opponents, distorting the truth for his own purposes, and when he finds a really painful point, he presses it to the last. Putin has long since forgotten how to respond to public criticism, he has simply unlearned that skill due to lack of practice. Moreover, he has never publicly confronted a seasoned populist like Trump. As a result, the Russian president remains silent, and this silence makes him even weaker. For a long time, the Russian president’s spin doctors have been quite successful in positioning him as a strong leader who can always defend a position, and if he does not enter into a polemic, it is only because the opponent does not match his stature. Trump is already beating Putin in this machismo-driven field of strong leadership. Putin appears as a dependent figure, and an indecisive one at that. In the game that Trump is forcing on the Kremlin, the Russian leadership has no good way out: either it accepts and agrees with Trump’s demands, but then the US leader is guaranteed to make himself look like a winner, or it responds to the criticism and continues the war. In the latter case, the economy will move ever closer to collapse and the stockpile of military hardware may run out. That said, Trump’s pronouncements are already driving a wedge within the Russian elite, especially the civil servants and businesses that are directly facing the consequences of sanctions. They are getting a powerful ally to talk about economic problems and urges Putin to accept the losses and end the war. But the pressure so keenly exercised by Trump also gives an advantage to the pro-war/isolation forces: Putin has always stressed that he does not like to be dared, and the American president is doing just that. Pundits loyal to the political bloc of the presidential administration (the bloc’s head, Sergey Kiriyenko, is believed to belong to the pro-war Kovalchuk brothers’ clan) are already criticizing Trump for his «escalating rhetoric». This junction to which Trump has brought Putin is tearing Russia’s elites apart, it is embarrassing Putin and could further exacerbate the Kremlin’s external and internal problems.
The «United Russia» party elite in a new guise
The secretary of the «United Russia» party General Council, Vladimir Yakushev, has promised/pledged that the ruling party will actively draw participants in the war with Ukraine into its ranks. Such statements fit into the official strategy of promoting the military to civilian institutions of power. Putin calls the war veterans the «new elite», and the Kremlin’s political bloc shows that the people in khaki get real appointments. In most cases, however, representatives of the elite who only claim to have been in the trenches get really influential posts: former Krasnodar mayor Yevgeny Pervyshov has become governor of the Tambov region, former Tambov mayor Alexander Kondratyev has become senator of the Kursk region, and regional parliamentarian Andrey Dubrovsky has become the chairperson of the Tula parliament. To those who have truly come back from the trenches, the system is reluctantly offering positions with a very limited mandate and without access to serious budgetary flows. Most of these jobs on offer have to do with the post-combat adaptation of war veterans or youth policy. The «United Russia» party is in no wat different in this respect. Yakushev explained that «special attention» would be paid to regional deputies who had decided to go to the war zone, or at least announced their intention to do it. «We will see how they prove themselves and who, among others, could be considered for the State Duma today,» he stressed.
Regional deputies have long been used by the «United Russia» party as a cadre reserve for the federal parliament. They know how the system works and are embedded in it. In recent years, seats in regional parliaments have mostly gone to public sector employees with some political clout, who are also not accidentals in the system, who know the ropes and the rules and are prepared to obey them. In almost every legislative assembly or municipal council of a large city, there is a figure who has announced that he is going to depart for the frontlines. Several State Duma MPs have passed through the so-called «Cascade» detachment. Among them are such «veterans» of the Federal Assembly as Vitaly Milonov and Dmitry Sablin. They too can be added to the «military quota» of the «United Russia» party. Moreover, there is still time to nominate candidates for the State Duma, and several other senior party figures may have time to gain their «military experience».
It is therefore unlikely that gaffes such as the appointment of a real military officer to head the small town of Sosnovka in the Kirov region will be repeated. It should be recalled that Nikita Gorelov, who became mayor, began his term by criticizing the previous leadership of the town for corruption and complaining about the small budget, which was insufficient for the town’s needs. Experienced regionalists with formal epaulettes will not dare to challenge the federal center this way; they will play by the rules and obey the high-ranking heads of the Duma committees.
