US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Kremlin may have been idle during last week’s talks in Moscow about a potential Ukraine peace deal, but the Russian side can now impose a new advantage: the deepening rift between the US and Europe.
On Tuesday, President Trump doubled down on his administration’s criticism of Europe, saying in a newly published interview with Politico that European countries are “weak” and “in decline” because of immigration policies.
He also claimed that Russia had the “advantage” in the war against Ukraine and that it was time for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to “start accepting things” regarding efforts to end the conflict. “When he’s losing, that’s when he’s going to have to pick up and start accepting things,” Trump said.
The US president’s comments came after the release of a new national security strategy last week, which broadly criticized European governments for supporting Ukraine and accused “European officials with unrealistic expectations of war” of standing in the way of a peace agreement.
“The majority of Europe wants peace, but this desire is not reflected in policy, largely because of the subversion of democratic processes by these governments,” the document claims.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke out against the strategy document at a press conference on Tuesday, saying: “Some of it is understandable, some of it is understandable, but some of it is unacceptable from a European perspective,” adding that European countries do not need US help to “save democracy” in Europe.
But the Trump administration’s policy of positioning Europe as an anti-democratic obstacle to stable relations with Russia has been a godsend for Russian authorities.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the document’s release on Sunday, saying it was “consistent with our vision.”
Peskov elaborated further in his remarks on Monday, saying: “The nuances of the new concept are certainly attractive to us. They speak of the need for dialogue and the building of constructive and good relations.”
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the main mediator of recent diplomatic exchanges between Washington and the Kremlin, also sees the timing. In a series of posts on X, Dmitriev praised President Trump’s condemnation of European countries, especially his warning that “Europe has to be very careful” and that “we are going in a bad direction… very bad for our people.”
President Trump’s remarks came in response to a question about X’s $140 million fine on Friday from EU regulators for violating Europe’s online content rules.
X owner Elon Musk also responded with a post calling for the abolition of the EU. But amplifying the Trump administration’s accusations of Europe’s democratic backsliding is a bit of a luxury for Russian officials. During his quarter-century in power, Russian President Vladimir Putin has largely eliminated political competition and erased press freedom. Additionally, Russia has effectively blocked access to social media sites such as Facebook and X, but this does not stop well-connected Russian officials such as Mr. Dmitriev from using such technology platforms to get their points across in English.
But there seems to be a deliberate strategy here. Russian policy is clearly aimed at chipping away at European support for Ukraine, seizing the opportunity to cast doubt on the viability of the NATO alliance. And the Trump administration’s new national security strategy will give the Russian government more ammunition in its information warfare aimed at swaying the publics of both the United States and Europe.
We’ve been here before: The reaction in Europe to the announcement of the Trump administration’s new national security strategy is similar to the shock Europeans felt after US Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in February. And the jubilation that may have been expressed in Moscow at Washington’s disregard for Europe is reminiscent of the jubilation that Trump and Vance publicly reprimanded Zelenskiy in the Oval Office later that month.
President Zelenskiy has been touring Europe this week, meeting with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany in London, and with NATO and European Union officials in Brussels to drum up support for Ukraine. But in parallel, the amount of Russian messages about Europe, and warnings against Europe, is also increasing.
In an interview on Russian state television, hardline Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov said Russia was “at war with Europe, not with the miserable, pathetic, misunderstood Ukraine.”
Karaganov added that he was not a spokesperson for President Putin, so he could give his honest opinion. “This war will not end until we crush Europe morally and politically.”
But even if Karaganov is not speaking on behalf of the Russian government, it is clear that he is conveying threats from Putin himself.
On the eve of meeting with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Moscow last week, Putin warned that Russia was “ready” for war with Europe — even if it had no intention of starting one.
“We’re not going to war with Europe. We’ve said this 100 times already, but if Europe suddenly wants to go to war with us, we’re ready right now,” he said last Tuesday.
But there is clearly an audience for such a rattling of swords, and the Kremlin wants to make sure Europeans are shaken by rhetoric that threatens to undermine their ties to their country’s transatlantic foundations.
CNN’s Billy Stockwell, Stephanie Halasz and Kit Maher contributed to this report.
