THE BELL WEEKLY: Trump-Zelensky clash delights Kremlin

Hello! Our main story is Russia jumping for joy at the stunning Oval Office clash between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. We also bring you highlights of our interview with Nobel Prize winning economist Daron Acemoglu.

Moscow revels in Oval Office row between Zelensky and Trump

Russia can’t get enough of last week’s unprecedented row between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the world’s media in the Oval Office. The growing rift between the United States, Ukraine and Europe gives the Kremlin hope that it can strike a deal normalizing relations with the West without significant losses, and on Russian terms.

• Friday’s squabble between Zelensky, Trump and J.D. Vance was an undoubted win for Putin — although Russian official reaction was initially muted. It wasn’t until Monday afternoon that Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov commented: “the president is up-to-speed with all the nuances of the spat.” He added that it proved Putin was right about Ukraine, highlighted how difficult a settlement will be and pointed to Zelensky’s lack of diplomatic skills. 
• Ex-president turned anti-West pro-invasion hawk Dmitry Medvedevwas one of the first to jump in: “Trump told the cocaine clown the truth to his face for the first time: the Kyiv regime is heading towards World War III. And the ungrateful pig got a solid slap from the owners of the pigsty.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also weighed in: “The fact that Trump and Vance restrained themselves from giving this scumbag a spanking is a miracle of endurance,” while MPs lined up to offer quotes about “the clown Zelensky.”
• TV propagandist-in-chief Dmitry Kiselyov devoted almost an hour of his “Vesti Nedeli” end-of-the-week show to the clash. The coverage was headlined “How Zelensky was kicked out of the White House by the seat of his pants.” Kiselyov spoke at length about how Zelensky’s negotiations with the Americans failed. “In front of the U.S. president he stood with a shaggy beard, dressed in cargo pants. Zelensky looked like a loser,” Kiselyov said. In addition to insults, stupid memes and repetitions of the Kremlin’s favorite baseless line that Zelensky is a cocaine addict, the main message was simple: Zelensky’s failure backs up Putin’s conclusion that he is a “toxic figure” – and that means it’s time for him to go.
• The other big theme coming out of Moscow, as voiced by both Kiselyov and Dmitry Peskov, is that the failed meeting with Zelensky and the subsequent emergency summit of European leaders in London proves that the West is fatally divided. Now Russia’s main enemy is the EU. “The European hawks want to further escalate the military conflict. But the EU is no longer a unified force, after all, it no longer has a coordinated foreign policy. Now individual countries are gathering for underground semi-summits – someone in Paris with Macron, someone in London with Starmer – but Europe is clearly no longer showing any unity,” said Kiselyov. “Somebody wants to send troops here, but which? The entire British army could fit into Wembley Stadium and there would still be room for the French.”
• Direct U.S.-Russia negotiations have yet to yield any concrete achievements, but Moscow continues to count on a normalization of relations. If this can be reached without ending the war in Ukraine, so much the better. On Friday, Peskov was delighted to note that “the new U.S. foreign policy configurations largely coincide with Russia’s”. Russian officials are also increasingly mastering the X social media site, owned by Trump enforcer Elon Musk: Kirill Dmitriyev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and one of the negotiators with the USA, has now been joined Putin’s chief aide on Ukraine, former Ukrainian politician Dmitry Medvedchuk, who is also maintaining his account in English.

Why the world should care

Many words have already been written about how the Kremlin, despite its hopes for Trump, never expected such a return so quickly. The failure of the talks between Trump and Zelensky offers Moscow the prospect of securing their wildest dreams – a “normalization of relations” with the United States without having to halt their invasion of Ukraine.

Daron Acemoglu talks to The Bell about Putin, Zelensky and Trump

Daron Acemoglu, one of the most cited economists in the world, received the Nobel Prize for Economics last year alongside his team for their research into how institutions affect well-being. Three years of war in Ukraine has finally ended the idea of institutions in Russia – but neither the government nor the economy seem to have suffered greatly. In the United States, Donald Trump is attacking institutions with all his might and the rest of the world is yet to come up with institutions that can safely lead society through the unfolding tech revolution. In an interview with The Bell's Denis Kasyanchuk, Acemoglu discussed these trends and more. Here are some of the highlights.

• In spring 2022, straight after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Acemoglu said that the war would have catastrophic consequences for Russia and for Putin personally. Now he accepts that for the president, the situation isn’t all that bad – if Trump’s ascendency enables him to negotiate a peace that brings territorial or strategic gains for Russia, he can come out of the war victorious.
• Putin has been relatively successful in protecting the middle class and preventing the escalation of protest. Sanctions have not had the anticipated effect, primarily due to stable oil prices, but also thanks to the third countries that kept buying that oil regardless of restrictions. Russia has managed to establish logistics, assemble the necessary army and launch a more successful offensive against Ukraine, Acemoglu highlighted. 
• But lleaving aside the question of how things will develop under Trump, he believes that the war has still weakened Putin. Just 18 months ago he faced an attempted coup, something that was previously completely unthinkable. “For me, that’s a sign of weakness in his regime. I would even say that if the war had gone worse for Russia, Putin might have lost power. But now the war is going much better for Russia than two years ago,” the economist said.
• According to Acemoglu, Russia has already experienced catastrophic consequences: “Russia’s institutions are effectively gone and the economy will not recover in the near future: in the best case it will take 10 years to return to the frankly not particularly healthy situation before the invasion of Ukraine.”
• If, with Trump’s support, Russia manages to conclude a truce with Ukraine on good terms, its geopolitical influence in the region might increase. “But this is not an unambiguous result. For example, due to this three-year war Russia had to limit its activity in the Middle East and its client state in Syria under Bashar al-Assad fell apart,” Acemoglu said. The undisputed superpowers, China and the United States, can deploy their forces anywhere in the world at will. But Russia lacks the resources for this, there are limits to Russia’s might in the wider world, Acemoglu said. “However, maybe I underestimated its strength. And Russia’s fall may take longer than I initially thought.”

Read more

The full interview is available here (in Russian).