by Valery Morozov
A personal view from a Moscow perspective (Part 1)
The return of Donald Trump to the White House with a fundamentally new team, has become an event comparable in scale and depth of consequences to Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in the USSR exactly 40 years ago. Although these two events are fundamentally different in many ways, just as the USSR and the USA, which opposed each other, were different in their socio-economic and state systems, there is nevertheless much that unites these two events.
The possible consequences of Trump’s return to power for the United States and the world are underestimated by both Trump’s opponents and his supporters. Perhaps Trump himself does not understand the extent of his influence, the full depth of changes in the world that he is bringing and, with a high probability, will bring both to the United States and to the system of relations in the world. Just as Mikhail Gorbachev, who buried the socialist superpower, turning the world into a unipolar system led by the United States, did not understand this in 1984, when he began holding meetings of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee in the Moscow Kremlin and planning his “perestroika”, and became the de facto leader of the USSR, a few months before his election as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
Trump’s impact has already become a shock wave, and even if an unexpected tragedy happens to Trump, the changes he plans to make will be carried out by the team that Trump has effectively already created. The process is set in motion and becomes irreversible.
Moreover, five weeks before the inauguration, the intentions, views, ideas and actions of Trump and his team have already begun to fundamentally influence and even determine the development of the situation in the world, to shape the policies and plans of leaders and governments of other countries, and influence the latest decisions of Biden and his administration.
This is especially evident in areas of conflict and confrontation, primarily in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the first clear manifestation of the impact of Trump’s return occurred in Europe, and it all started in Ukraine.
USA – Ukraine – Russia. Round 1
Granting Ukraine the right to strike American missiles deep into Russian territory was done in a manner typical of Biden and the US Democrats. It was unable to change the course and outcome of the war, but it has created additional irritation and tension both at the front and in the negotiations, and, most importantly, in the relations between Moscow, Europe and Washington.
On the one hand, the chances of NATO’s direct involvement in the war in Ukraine have increased sharply, and Trump has more problems now to solve in Europe. However, on the other hand, Biden’s decision has given Zelensky a chance to significantly strengthen his negotiating positions, and that is undoubtedly beneficial to Trump.
Some political analysts, especially in Russia, decided that Biden did not make such a decision at all and did not give permission to strike ATACMS missiles on Russian territory, that the decision was made by someone who took advantage of the weakening and, as some believed, the collapse of the system of governance in Washington during the transition period.
These observers cited the fact that neither Biden, nor Blinken, nor Sullivan made a statement about making such a decision or named anyone responsible for making it.
According to these political scientists, the main threat to peace in the coming weeks will come from the United States, and the source of this threat is the loss of control and management by the White House over various groups in the US government, army and intelligence agencies.
However, it is not unusual that Washington and the Democrats refuse to confirm that the decision, whoever prepared it, was made by Biden personally. During the transition period, during the transfer of power from one president to another, it is not customary in the United States for the outgoing president to make decisions that sharply increase the confrontation in world politics, especially between nuclear powers. And this is exactly what Biden did.
Moreover, there were agreements between Washington and Moscow that missile strikes would not be carried out on internal Russian territory. Biden did not want and did not need to officially take responsibility for violating the agreements. He is leaving, and Trump will have to solve problems with Putin.
The opinion about the growth of ungovernability in Washington is present mainly in Russia, and it is advantageous for the West to hide behind “chaos” so that Moscow does not understand what is happening, who makes decisions and bears responsibility for them.
In my view, those analysts are right who believe that during the meeting of the two presidents in the White House, Biden warned Trump about his decision to allow Ukraine to launch ATACMS strikes on Russian territory. And this decision was to some extent advantageous to Trump. On the one hand, responsibility for it lies with the outgoing administration, and on the other hand, this decision, as it seemed at that moment, strengthened the US position in future negotiations with the Kremlin.
Trump then spoke to Putin and warned him of the upcoming strikes on targets in Russia, and that was also agreed upon with Biden. The Kremlin denied the US media report that Trump and Putin had spoken, but that refusal to confirm the talks was in the same vein as Sullivan’s refusal to acknowledge that Biden had made the decision to launch missile strikes on Russia. The conversation between Trump and Putin was secret, and the presidents agreed to withhold the information for the time being, and the Kremlin did exactly that.
European leaders were warned about this decision, which was confirmed by European media. Scholz also spoke with Putin, and the topic of escalating the war in Ukraine, initiated by Biden at the end of his term, was apparently at the centre of this conversation, as was the decision to transfer new German drones to Ukraine, capable of striking at a depth of 150 kilometers.
During these conversations, possible options for both the use of Western missiles and Russia’s response were discussed. And again, certain agreements were reached.
Then, according to Ukrainian sources, Trump conveyed to Zelensky via his head of staff, Yermak, a request not to strike Russian territory with ATACMS missiles, but Zelensky ignored this request. That served as a pretext for Trump to refuse Zelensky’s request to hold a meeting with him before the inauguration.
On November 17, Russia launched its first strike, the most painful blow to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, something Moscow had refrained from doing for months. This strike on Ukraine’s energy grid forced Ukrainian energy companies to shut down several nuclear reactors. The IAEA reported that seven of Ukraine’s nine operating nuclear reactors were temporarily shut down after the attack. This led to blackouts in several regions, including western Ukraine, to a significant increase in electricity supplies to Ukraine from the EU, and inevitable rise in energy prices in Europe.
The significance of this strike is underestimated in the US, Europe, Ukraine and even Russia. In fact, the world has reached a new level of globalization of the war in Ukraine.
For the first time in its modern history, Ukraine has been transformed from a country with excess electricity, which it has always been since the creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, into a chronic importer, unable to independently provide electricity for either the remains of its own industry or the lives of its population.
This was a blow not only to Ukraine’s energy system, but also to Europe’s energy system, because now Ukraine’s existence and its military capabilities became completely dependent on Europe’s power supply.
Moscow also imposed restrictions on uranium supplies to the United States, the first time since the early 1990s , when Bill Clinton concluded an agreement with Boris Yeltsin under which Russia supplied weapons-grade uranium to the United States at a price tens of times lower than the real price, and the United States provided financial support to the regime in Russia.
This was the so-called Gore-Chernomyrdin deal. On February 18, 1993, the agreement was signed in Washington, according to which Russia was to process at least 500 tons of Russian weapons-grade (highly enriched) uranium, equivalent to about 20,000 nuclear warheads, into low-enriched uranium — fuel for US nuclear power plants. The agreement was designed for 20 years and expired in 2013, but Russia continued to supply uranium to the US. In total, 14,446 tons of low-enriched uranium were exported from Russia to the US.
The Gore-Chernomyrdin deal allowed the US to obtain weapons-grade and enriched uranium for decades at the price of 10-year-old Scotch whiskey, and Boris Yeltsin’s clan in the mid-1990s received through shadow channels, hundreds of billions of dollars for the regime’s salvation and enrichment and created the layer of so-called “Russian oligarchs” as its economic, business and political support base.
There was a side effect of this deal, that Washington did not calculate at the time: by selling “nuclear whiskey,” Russia preserved and supported its nuclear complex inherited from the USSR, while the US nuclear industry found itself “hooked” on almost free Russian uranium and gradually degraded, turning the first nuclear superpower into an importer of enriched uranium.
In 2021, Russia withdrew from the deal but continued to supply uranium at low prices. Now Putin has taken control of the uranium flow, turning it into a political tool and a subject of upcoming negotiations with Trump.
And yet, it seemed that Zelensky had received the most important gift from the outgoing Biden, and then from Starmer and Macron: the ability to strike targets in Russia with modern ballistic missiles. This seemed like a trump card in future negotiations with Putin.
The strike by American missiles on a facility in the Bryansk region, according to Russian media and Telegram channels, had important demonstration, but limited military effect. The missiles were intercepted, and the damage from the fallen missiles was insignificant, and there were no casualties.
Storm Shadow missile strike was more dangerous. According to Russian and Ukrainian war correspondents, the strike was carried out on the command centre of the Russian group “North”. Ukrainian intelligence had information about a command staff meeting planned there.
Several missiles were shot down, several missiles hit the target, and servicemen guarding and working at the facility were killed. The Ukrainian side claims that officers of the command staff were also killed, including a “Korean general.” Putin denied these claims. He said that there were no losses among the command staff. The meeting that the Ukrainian side allegedly knew about, was held the following day with the participation of Russian Defence Minister Belousov, and information about this meeting, including a video, was provided to the media.
These two strikes, especially the second one, on the command centre of the North group, showed the Kremlin that the agreements reached continue to be violated by Kiev, which continues to act, teasing not only Putin, but also Trump, and that Zelensky finds support in both NATO and Europe.
After Trump’s victory, Zelensky not only launched ATACMS missile strike on Russian territory, but also announced that he would sign a law recognizing same-sex family “unions” and “partnerships” in Ukraine, that was a blatant disrespect of Trump, his team, and the Republican Party.
The missile strike did not cause significant damage to Russia, and the statement on the recognition of same-sex families also had neither military nor domestic Ukrainian public significance, but all that became a demonstration of the loyalty of the current Zelensky regime to the outgoing Democratic administration of the United States. However, the consequences turned out to be more significant, and it seems that Putin acted according to a prepared plan, possibly agreed upon.
On November 21, for the first time in history, Russia conducted full-scale combat tests of the new ballistic missile “Oreshnik” (“Walnut”, “Hazel”. The missile apparently received its name because the warheads fall on the target at a tremendous speed, like glowing brushes reminiscent of hazel branches. The ancestors of the Russians, the Slavic tribes of pre-Christian times, considered the walnut (hazel) to be the younger brother of the oak and one of the most sacred trees, patronized by the Perun, the highest god of the pantheon and the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law and war. People hid under the hazel during a thunderstorm, because it protected from lightning. The hazel was considered a magical plant and energy converter. Magic wands were made from hazel wood)
“Oreshnik” is the latest development, although it was created on the basis of Soviet missiles, including those that did not go into production and were banned by the agreement between Reagan and Gorbachev ( more on this later, in the second part – VM) .
The creation of Oreshnik was caused, among other things, by the fact that modern warfare has shown the inconsistency of the concept of “surgical strikes with high-precision weapons,” that for more than 30 years was the basis of military strategy for both Western and the Russian armies.
The war in Ukraine has shown this strategy to be ineffective. Combat operations are conducted in small groups, and combat units and equipment are distributed across the territory. Many decisions are made by junior officers, and communications allow the decision-making and command system, as well as combat forces, to be dispersed. Concentration of forces in one place is contraindicated and prohibited in modern warfare.
This forced Russia to urgently begin creating qualitatively new types of weapons, including medium-range ballistic missile systems, one of which is the Oreshnik.
According to unofficial sources, the minimum range of the missile is 500-800 km, the maximum range is up to 5000-6000 km, the flight speed is M=10-15 or 3 km per second. The missile carries six nuclear and non-nuclear warheads, in total equal to 130 bombs dropped on Hiroshima, and each warhead consists of six more submunitions of unknown design. Thus, one missile strikes with 36 charges almost simultaneously, with high accuracy and an individual guidance system. Existing missile defence systems are not able to intercept and destroy the Oreshnik missiles.
Each charge flies at a speed of up to 3 kilometers per second and has such kinetic energy that it can destroy structures protected by multi-meter concrete and located several dozen meters underground even without explosive charge. This artificial earthquake was demonstrated in Ukraine.
According to eyewitnesses on Telegram channels, the impact of the Oreshnik warheads was so powerful that the buildings at the Ukrainian Yuzhmash plant turned into dust, a pile of concrete and metal, as if from a powerful earthquake, including underground multi-story concrete buildings in which NATO parts and equipment for short-range ballistic missiles were stored, and workshops for their production, as well as the production of long-range drones, were located.
However, the significance of the Oreshnik is not so much in its technical and combat characteristics, but in strategic and political terms. The strike of the Oreshnik missile on Yuzhmash was another leap in the globalization of the war in Ukraine.
Europe was left unprotected. Any city, any object can be destroyed in 5-15 minutes after the launch of the Oreshnik from Russian territory. All US military bases in Eurasia, as well as in Alaska, the US West Coast and the Pacific Ocean can also be destroyed. However, the Oreshnik missiles will not be able to reach the main US territory.
This fundamentally changes the strategic alignment and repeats the situation that developed between the West and the USSR confrontation in the early 1980s.
And here we must return to Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan…
(to be continued)