Memo to Team Trump

Editor’s note: This article is written as memo about Russia to President-elect Trump. It is not a traditional Wavell Room article. However, we considered it a thought-provoking read worthy of publishing.

In November each year we commemorate the dead of two world wars and wars between. The American sacrifice was large: over 1,300,000 casualties sacrificed for the promise of a better world. That promise was enshrined in the San Francisco Conference (1945) and UN Charter (1945), buttressed by the Universal Recognition of Human Rights (1948). You, by which I mean America and the American Presidency, provided the leadership. The redoubtable Eleanor Roosevelt, no less, championed the latter. Never again was the watchword.

It’s been busy while you have been out of office. You will be aware Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin mentioned you when he launched the invasion. Washington, in ‘a state of euphoria from absolute superiority, a kind of modern form of absolutism…deceived me,’ so protested the champion liar Russian president in a lame rationale for his assault on Ukraine. Putin’s arrogant and deluded plan was to replace Zelensky with former President Yanukovych (he was flown to the Belarusian-Ukrainian border). Then, once a show had been made of turning back the clock to February 2014, the hapless Yanukovych would have been dispensed with and Putin’s friend, Dmitry Medvedev, would have been installed as president. As if the affairs of nations are arranged in this way by two gangsters passing power between themselves (the equally hapless Medvedev cannot complain too much; after being recovered in a prisoner swap, Putin passed a number of businesses to his control, and he has even bought himself another luxury yacht, to make up for the one impounded by Ukrainian authorities; such is the world of the Kremlin Mafiosi).

None of this happened, of course. The idiocy of what Putin had ordered was evident after three days, or the time he imagined it would take to capture Kyiv. Ukrainians fought like lions and resist almost three years later. They will continue to fight for their liberty – the sweetest word in the dictionary, ask any American.

The reality is that President Putin despises you and holds America in contempt. That same Russian contempt extends to the post-war international settlement enshrined in the UN Charter, viewed ridiculously as a plot to put down Russia. The same contempt is evident in the Russian Army’s disgraceful disregard for the Geneva Conventions, and in the repression of Ukrainians trapped in the occupied parts of Ukraine. Civil servants, teachers, journalists and clergy have been abused, tortured and murdered (Ukrainian Baptists are viewed as ‘American spies’ and have been especially singled out). And Russian nationalism is not best pleased with your ally and supporter Elon Musk, incidentally. ‘Elon Musk is the priority enemy of the Russian Army’, so wrote Russian Evgeny Fedorov in an open call to kill the entrepreneur.

You won’t get much shrift from his inner circle, so don’t bother trying. At the beginning of September Foreign Minister Lavrov asserted there can be no negotiations: ‘We do not discuss our territory with anyone. We do not negotiate about our territory.’ His real name, by the way, is Kalantaryan. He’s Armenian. Remind him the next time you see him. More recently, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Medvedev ranted: ‘From this moment on, the SVO must acquire an openly extraterritorial character. This is no longer just an operation to return our official territories and punish the Nazis. It is possible and necessary to go to the lands of the still existing Ukraine. To Odessa, to Kharkov, to Dnepropetrovsk, to Nikolaev. To Kyiv and further. There should be no restrictions in the sense of some recognized borders of the Ukrainian Reich.’

They are, of course, just parroting Putin and his ‘Russia without borders’. Two days before the rigged presidential elections in the spring, he stated in an interview with Rossiya 1 and RIA Novosti. ’Are we ready to negotiate? Yes, we are ready, but only ready for negotiations that are not based on some wishes after the use of psychotropic drugs, but based on the realities that have developed.’ (Lapdog Medvedev dutifully chimed that Kyiv’s ‘reality’ was that of a ‘provincial clown in green tights. And nothing less).

Russian nationalists agree. This was Alexander Samsonov: The only way out is the victory of the Russian army. The destruction of Ukrainian statehood – the Ukroreich. The Ukrainian ideology of Nazism. Complete demilitarization. Punishment of war criminals, as after the Second World War. Complete reformatting of Ukraine. The Left Bank, Novorossiya immediately become part of Russia. The rest of the territory is under the control of the army…Complete Russification. Restoration of the Russian language in state institutions, mass media, education system, culture and art…The return of New and Little Russia to the Russian civilization. Great Russia is the only way for a great Victory.’

Putin is not going to stop. Ceasefires and truces are chimeras. The goals of the ‘special military operation’ will be fulfilled. He has said so many times now. They are the dismemberment of Ukraine; an emasculated Ukrainian Army; Russian as equal state language in the remaining rump of Ukraine; and a compliant Kyiv outside NATO. Subjugation in other words. Sure, he’ll string you along, as he did the US delegation in Geneva on the eve of war, feigning interest in settlement. But he’s a first-class swindler. Don’t believe him. The heart of the matter is he doesn’t believe America has the will or strength to stop him.

Sergio Miller

Sergio Miller is a retired British Army Intelligence Corps officer. He was a regular contributor and book reviewer forBritish Army Review. He is the author of a two-part history of the Vietnam War (Osprey/Bloomsbury) and is currently drafting a history of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.