By Dmytro Kuleba in podcast for Ramina.
We should not create the illusion that America is good and Trump is bad. This is a new America. It's the same as it has been all these years, but we didn't see it because we were looking at only one America, while half of the country was completely different. Half of the country brought their president to power. This is not a historical accident or a historical mistake. When it happens for the second time in ten years, it's time to think. I assure you, if there is no internal global confrontation in America, this team will find a new candidate. They already have someone who will follow Trump's presidency. If you keep track of so-called conservative media in America, they are already promoting their next president. This is for the long haul. It's not something we can wait for four years for and hope it will pass. No, America is what it is—it’s not Hollywood, it’s not New York, it’s not even Washington. It's everything outside those areas. Outside of that, it is different. It’s conservative, self-contained, and they want to deal with global issues.
There is America, there is China, there is Russia. There are several levels to this. The psychotypes of how Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping view how the world should work are essentially similar. But the strategic interests of China and the United States are directly opposed, because China needs stability to overtake America.
America needs to stop China, and for this, they have embarked on a path of instability. So, they say, "Let's start breaking the world." We saw that "China has learned to use this world to catch up and overtake us." This is the essence of what is happening. And here is Russia, which doesn't believe in the West, doesn't believe that long-term agreements with America are possible, but wants to take advantage of America's current friendliness toward Russia. To resolve their immediate interests, America and Russia will stay together; they will continue to undermine the West and move toward building world events, a world order that, in their view, will suit them. This is why Ukrainians sometimes feel like, "We are here, they are fighting with each other, and yet they support each other." This is a manifestation of these two opposite directions.
For China and the US, Russia is now playing the role of a partner. Clearly, the United States is trying to play the Russia card and weaken the partnership between China and Russia. Russia understands this and plays along, because, above all, they are interested in only one thing: Ukraine. To take Ukraine, they are willing to make concessions in other areas. So, they play this game. They say, "Donald, if you want to jointly extract gas in the Arctic? Okay, let's talk. You want us to help you deal with Iran? Okay, let's talk. Dear Donald, whatever you want, just give us Ukraine."
This is essentially the proposal that Putin put on the table for Donald Trump. And Trump buys into it because it allows him to say to everyone, "Look how great I am, how I solved this, how I solved that." But China will not let Russia embrace the United States, because China needs Russia in its current state—weak enough to make concessions.
