In a stunning comeback, Russia wins the Cold War

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Vladimir Putin, Russia’s long-standing dictator, never got over the Soviet Union’s collapse at the end of the Cold War. He has called it the “ greatest geopolitical catastrophe “ of the 20th century and said he’d reverse it if he could. It’s starting to look as though Putin’s decades-old grudge might just pay off, as he sits on the sidelines and watches the United States do the work for him.

The most powerful country in the world, which was — for good reason — Putin’s biggest nemesis until only two months ago, is now rolling out the red carpet for him, parroting his talking points, chastising and weakening his adversaries, and blaming his victims for his offenses. The United States has brushed Russia’s war against the West under the rug and switched teams. What is even more worrying is that President Donald Trump seems either unaware or unconcerned that Putin’s plan is to weaken the United States too. After all, damaging our closest allies and doing our enemy’s bidding don’t make us stronger.

Take the so-called peace negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Even before they began, Trump and his team handed Putin concession after concession for nothing in return. First, they single-handedly ended Putin’s international isolation. Russian state television was giddy watching Trump’s team undo years of the American-led effort to make Putin a pariah for invading Ukraine and other efforts to undermine democracy and state sovereignty in Europe and beyond. Trump agreed that he and Putin would visit each other’s countries, return to normal diplomatic relations and even pursue joint economic ventures. These are valuable diplomatic offers given for free.

Then Trump and his team gave away the two vital bargaining chips of Ukraine’s possible NATO membership and recovering stolen territory. Trump even suggested Putin had a rightful claim to it, saying that Russia “ fought for that land “ and “lost a lot of soldiers,” and that it was unlikely Ukraine would get any of it back. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated these points just ahead of a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, saying both NATO membership and returning to prewar borders were unrealistic goals.

Speaking to reporters later, Trump had the gall to blame the victim, saying Ukraine “should have never started it.” Russian politicians and state media were thrilled to hear the U.S. president backing their insulting and obvious lies. Treating Ukraine like some vanquished aggressor, Trump demanded half of its natural resources revenue as “payback” (not in return for future guarantees). That would be a higher gross domestic product share than Germany’s reparations after World War I and leave Ukraine a vassal state.

The Trump team hasn’t limited its animosity to Ukraine, though. It has adopted Putin’s talking points on all of Europe. At the Munich Security Conference, an annual convening on international security, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told our European allies that they — not Russia or China — were their own biggest enemy.

Calling it the threat “from within,” Vance lectured European leaders about suppressing free speech and regulating social media. Coming from an administration banning words such as “gender” and “oppression” from all government publications and punishing a news outlet for using the internationally recognized name of the Gulf of Mexico, the accusation is rich indeed.

But the examples he touted made clear that he sought maximum freedom for only the least democratic actors. Vance criticized Germany for ostracizing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has used Nazi slogans and been designated an extremist group. He also scolded Romania for annulling elections that were targeted by “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks.” After all, unregulated social media are the premier tool of Russia’s propaganda machine.

Russia has scored some major wins in the U.S. homeland too, lest you think Putin is only using America to weaken others. Russia has long stoked the anti-vaccination movement in America to undermine our public health, so having leading vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the helm of America’s Health and Human Services Department is a huge Kremlin win. But Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence is an even bigger one, for now the chief spy in America is a Moscow darling who has blamed NATO for Russia’s aggression and frequently shared bizarre Russian conspiracies and anti-American propaganda. Whether witting or unwitting, her worldview has been shaped by Russian disinformation for years. In normal times, she wouldn’t even qualify for a basic security clearance.

It isn’t hard to see what’s happening, but it is hard to comprehend why so many American political leaders are perfectly OK with it. In a world where the United States is aligned with Russia and against Europe, Russia wins, and we lose. Autocracy wins, and democracy loses.