Russian Foreign Ministry Statement on Trump Election

Additional Remarks by Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov

On November 6, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the November 5 Elections in the United States:

“The victory of Donald Trump in the presidential election and his return to the White House after a four-year break obviously reflect Americans’ disappointment in the performance of the Biden administration and the election program of the Democratic Party formulated by Vice-President Kamala Harris, who was hastily chosen to replace the incumbent president in the race.”

“Despite an overpowering propaganda campaign, which Democrats launched against Donald Trump based on the administrative resource and support from the liberal media, the Republican candidate, who relied on the experience of his previous presidency, highlighted issues that are of real interest to the electorate, namely, the economy and illegal migration, as a counterbalance to the White House’s globalist course. In that situation, the ruling group was unable to use the chronically ill American “democracy,” which is outdated and incompatible with the modern standards of direct, fair and transparent elections, to prevent Kamala Harris’s defeat.”

“At the same time, there is an obvious civil discord in the United States, whose electorate has split into almost equal halves. In fact, we are witnessing confrontation between Democratic and Republican states, and between the advocates of “progressive” and traditional values. It is possible that Donald Trump’s return will fuel internal tensions and bitterness between the confronting camps.’

“We have no illusions about the president elect, who is well known in Russia, or the new Congress, where Republicans have reportedly won control. The US ruling political elite adheres to anti-Russia principles and the policy of “containing Moscow.” This line does not depend on changes in America’s domestic political barometer, no matter if it is Trump and his supporters’ “America above all” or the Democrats’ focus on a “rules-based world order.”

“Russia will interact with the new administration when it comes to the White House, firmly upholding Russia’s national interests and working to achieve all the goals of the Special Military Operation. Our conditions have not changed, and Washington is well aware of them.”

On November 7, while speaking at an evening event at a Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin called Trump a "courageous man" who had been "hounded from all sides." Putin said he was “ready for dialogue”  with Trump on Ukraine. These were Putin’s first remarks on Trump since he won Tuesday's presidential vote. Trump has stated several times that he wanted to end the war and that he could negotiate an end to the war quicky. Speaking for over two hours, Putin  also said the July assassination attempt on Trump, during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, made an "impression" on him.”  Putin further remarked about Trump that:

“People show who they are in extraordinary circumstances. This is where a person reveals himself. And he [Trump] showed himself, in my opinion, in a very correct manner, courageously, like a man,"

At a separate event, Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also asked about  the impact of Trump’s election on future US and Russian relations. The Russian Foreign Ministry records such addresses and publishes them online: https.//www.mid.ru/en. Readers should be aware that Russian is one of the more complex European languages. With six cases for nouns and two aspects for verbs, Russian is generally a more precise language than English. English translations are sometimes inexact in detail.

Question: “Considering Donald Trump's victory, are there any scheduled engagements with representatives of the forthcoming US administration? In this context, do you foresee a change in the US Ambassador to Russia? When might we expect a reciprocal decision from Russia regarding a new Ambassador in Washington?”

Sergey Lavrov: “We have never turned away from engaging with any party. Russian President Vladimir Putin consistently underscores our stance: dialogue is invariably preferable to mutual isolation.”

“The challenges in Russia-US relations are profound. They arise from the perception within the US elite that suppressing any global competitors is imperative to maintaining American predominance. Under current conditions, this perspective is increasingly unjustifiable, given the objective evolution of global affairs. Nonetheless, this ideology persists among the Americans.

I reiterate: we did not sever relations, nor is it our place to propose their resumption. Should there be an initiative to engage in honest discussions, devoid of unilateral demands, about our current standing and future direction, we will be more than willing to partake.”

“As for the ambassadors, I anticipate that the incoming American Republican administration will be keen to appoint a new Ambassador. We will not impose any impediments. The appointment of a new Russian Ambassador to the United States is proceeding as usual. The necessary procedures will soon be completed, and we shall keep you informed.”

Excerpts from Putin’s Sochi speech came from a Ukrainian source, who indicated hostility toward both Putin and Trump. His quotes on Putin’s evaluation of Trump, however, are accurate, as can now be verified by news videos available in the West.

Most of the West has been terribly misinformed about the Ukrainian War, rightfully branded by better-informed skeptics as ”Project Ukraine,” which did not begin with an “unprovoked” Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This false mantra of an “unprovoked invasion” prevailed for a while in the West (NATO/EU) due to powerful government and financial influences on the lock-step establishment media—in the US: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. This lock-step mantra of “unprovoked invasion” also prevails in most NATO countries, especially the UK. However, Hungary and Slovakia have resisted this false narrative, and recent European elections indicate strong and growing public resistance to this false NATO/EU narrative in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

Russian tensions regarding its national security go back to broken promises to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989-1990, regarding the reunification of Germany, that NATO would not be expanded east of Germany. Gorbachev was a reformer, who was rapidly dismantling hardline Communist doctrines in the USSR and had built good relationships with US presidents Ronald Reagan and  George H.W. Bush.

The Soviet Union broke up in 1991 and the Communists lost power to reformers. The new Russian Federation was initially led by President Boris Yeltsin. Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin in January 2000 and was elected president in May 2000. Putin was succeeded by his Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 and elected president again in 2012, having served as Prime Minister during Medvedev’s presidential tenure. Putin has proved a vigorous and highly successful reformer and has been in office since then. He received over 88% of the vote in the March 2024 presidential election. The Communists received barely over four percent of the vote. According to a non-Russian source (Statista), Putin’s  approval ratings have run better than 80% since April 2022.  Putin approval ratings over 80% have been common since 2003. His lowest rating has been 59% in May 2020.  As Deputy Chairman of the Security Committee, Medvedev remains a powerful pro-Putin influence in Russian domestic, foreign, and military affairs. In recent years, Medvedev has become a hardline skeptic of the West.

Russian security tensions rose sharply in 2008 when US President George W. Bush pushed NATO into endorsing Ukraine and Georgia for eventual membership in NATO.  Bush was warned by US Ambassador to Russia, now CIA Director, William Burns, that this clearly crossed a serious Russian Redline unanimously supported by all Russian leadership.

In February 2014, the US State Department, CIA, British MI6, and George Soros funded NGOs instigated, funded, and  supported a revolutionary overthrow (Maidan Revolution) of duly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replaced him with a US-picked government. Yanukovych had supported neutrality. This unlawful regime change caused a civil war in which over 14,000 were killed. This bloody conflict was due to the suppression of Russian language, culture, history, and religious preferences to make Ukraine more Ukrainian. However close to 40% of Ukraine’s pre-2014 population were connected to Russian or mixed Russian-Ukrainian culture and ethnic ties. The was concentrated in eastern and southern Ukraine, where pro-Russian majorities run from 60 to 90 percent.

The Minsk agreements of 2015 would have solved the Russian-minority problem by granting more autonomy to the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, where Russian ethnics are close to 90% of the population and by guaranteeing the Russian minority cultural, language, and civil rights. This agreement was, however, never implemented and was eventually betrayed by Ukraine, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States  just before the Russian intervention to protect the Donbass Republics from Ukrainian Army invasion and continuous artillery attacks on civilian areas. Ukrainian artillery had increased their bombardment of civilian areas of Donetsk by ten-fold just prior to the Russian intervention. Furthermore, it has now been confessed by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande that European leaders were not negotiating in good faith. They were simply stalling until Ukraine could build an army strong enough to invade the Donbass and Crimea.  

There is much more to this, which you can read in my Times Examiner article of June 25, 2024, entitled, “Using Ukraine to Defeat and Breakup Russia.”  

The bottom line is that the Ukraine War was not an “unprovoked” Russian invasion of Ukraine. The US and its compliant NATO allies had been provoking the Russians since 2008. The war really started in February 2014 with an unlawful coup removing a duly elected president of Ukraine and commencing cultural and ethnic cleansing programs directed against its Russian-speaking minority. This included banning the Russian Orthodox Church and confiscating congregational properties. Making Ukraine more Ukrainian made a virtue of hating everything Russian, including ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine. This evolved into a US  plan to use Ukraine to weaken Russia, causing regime change and breakup. This has been aided and abetted by the lock-step Propaganda Media.

The Propaganda Media has engaged in outrageous lies and distortions fed by the corrupt Ukrainian and Biden regimes. This false narrative is meant to convince us to support and fund what we are told is a righteous cause opposing unprovoked aggression. A major part of this false narrative is concentrated on propaganda demonizing Russian leaders and even the Russian people.

During the war, Ukrainian propaganda has typically and outrageously turned facts upside down, making false war crime claims and often accusing Russians of war crimes mostly done by Ukrainians. Ukrainian lawyer and political activist Oleksandra Matviichuk has been featured in a recent Ukrainian funded US election campaign ad. She is a beautiful and articulate woman, but her accusations are either false or twisted.  She does not address directly a candidate choice, but apparently the Ukrainian regime believes Kamala Harris was the best hope for continuing Ukrainian President Zelensky’s stream of American money and his delusional hope for victory over the Russians. Ukraine has no realistic hope of winning the war, and the  casualties and destruction endured by the Ukrainian people in sustaining the war are unbearable and beyond moral justification.    

Yet the Propaganda Media has convinced many Americans that Ukraine is winning the war. This is almost comical in regard to the facts. The Ukrainian Army is collapsing. It has run out of willing soldiers and  must recruit by brutal force—often fiercely resisted.  Desertions and justifiable insubordination are rampant. Some estimates (Macgregor etc.)  place Ukrainian military deaths at over 600,000 and growing by thousands per week.  Russian losses are not 10% of this, and their army is growing by 25-30,000 per month. The Ukrainian economy is in shambles ,and electrical infrastructure has suffered tremendous devastation. Millions of refugees have fled—more have gone to Russian than any other country. The population of Ukraine is hardly half of its 1990 level.

Trump and Putin need to end this war. I do not expect Putin to give up  conquered territory that is basically Russian-ethnic in the first place. If we can find fair, honest, and unbiased international monitors, every contested state should be decided by popular referendum. That might mean that Odessa, which voted over 74% pro-Russian in 2010, would go to Russia. Putin, however, has hinted in the past that the Odessa issue might yield some points of negotiated compromise.  

In 2014, then Vice President Joe Biden, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and present US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan were all heavily involved in the revolutionary coup  that was the real beginning of Project Ukraine and the Ukraine War.  Victoria Nuland has just been made a board member of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, which is dedicated to wrecking the influence of traditional American values in government and culture.

But Trump’s election has made better times possible.  Better times will require a more informed and wiser foreign policy than we have seen in a long while.