Russian President Vladimir Putin is the least trusted leader in the world, according to an international survey. In the US, Putin’s favorite Donald Trump is currently losing ground. And in Germany, the two parties most critical of Putin – the Greens and the CDU – score the most points among the public.
Slowly and seemingly unstoppably, the fire roller of Russian artillery is making its way through the Donbass, leaving behind more and more fields of rubble. But if you look at the whole global political picture, you will see that the way out of this conflict remains open – and there is five new bad news for the head of the Kremlin, writes the German publication RND this morning.
The world no longer trusts Moscow
Vladimir Putin has already achieved something that will earn him a place in the history books. He ruined Russia’s reputation – not only temporarily, but forever.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz summed it up this way: “In relations with Russia, there can be no going back to the time before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
The historic rift with Moscow primarily affects trust in the country. Less than ever, the rest of the world still takes what the Russian government says at face value. And this new attitude prevails not only in government offices, but also on the street. The huge increase in mistrust of Moscow is measurable in demographic terms, and not only in NATO countries.
Away from the battlefield, in South Korea, a high-tech country with three times the per capita income of Russia, the decline in Russia’s authority has been particularly sharp. According to a Pew Research survey, in 2021, 58% of South Koreans considered the US and 42% Russia to be “trustworthy partners”. Currently, the ratio is 83 (US) to 16 (Russia).
According to residents of 18 different countries, Putin is the least trustworthy leader in the world. According to Pew Research, Putin enjoys the trust of only 9% of the population, which ranks him behind Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (18%).
And the lack of trust in Moscow stops Putin’s ability to spread the Russian point of view on social media. Critics of Russia dominate there more than ever. Twitter, for example, already issues warnings about “spreading false or misleading information” to messages from Russian government authorities. For example, Twitter “flagged” a tweet by the Russian Foreign Ministry that Ukraine essentially caused the destruction of the Kremenchuk shopping center on its own: The Russian Air Force simply targeted US and European weapons and ammunition hangars “in a high-precision attack ” – the detonation of the munitions then set fire to a “defunct shopping mall”.
A clear case of propaganda – in a particularly cynical form – according to Moscow, Ukrainians died as a result of Western arms supplies. Before such a distortion would have been readily taken up by pro-Russian conspiracy theorists or so-called Putin’s insiders in the West and it would have been spread, possibly even in the mainstream media.
In the meantime, however, Twitter is already stopping the nonsense technically: tweets from Moscow with warning messages cannot be forwarded in the usual way. This slows the spread of the virus, which Moscow had hoped for. Putin’s PR people continue to shoot their fire arrows at the West every day. But they are increasingly lost without effect.
The Baltic Sea becomes a NATO sea
The NATO summit in Madrid on June 29 and 30 will bring Russia an unprecedented strategic loss: the entire Baltic Sea will now be dominated by NATO.
For weeks, Moscow has threatened “terrible consequences” if Finland and Sweden join NATO. The mushroom clouds of nuclear bombs were forming in the minds of many. In recent days, however, Moscow has treated the accession as if it were ultimately irrelevant. In reality, Putin is showing that he is simply putting up with the things he cannot prevent.
Joining the two Nordic countries in NATO is not only a gigantic political goal, but Putin, who has always complained about NATO expansion, has now challenged it himself. Militarily, both Putin and all his successors in the Kremlin will henceforth have to live with the limitation of Russian power and Russian capabilities in the Baltic Sea.
In previous decades, a Russian naval attack on Germany, for example to seize the ports of the most economically difficult country in Europe, would have bypassed the neutral countries of Finland and Sweden. In the future, the Russian marines will have to reckon with the fact that their ships will be sunk by Finnish and Swedish missiles, which are already located in the northern part of the Baltic Sea.
And here the world is witnessing a permanent change in the balance to the detriment of Russia. Meanwhile, a somewhat blunt remark by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a visit to the Baltic states proved quite true: “Trying to threaten the world’s largest and most powerful military alliance can also backfire.”
Active West, paralyzed Russia
The G-7 network has recently been working harder than ever for a growing global alliance of all democracies. It is no longer just about food aid and vaccines. The “Global Infrastructure Partnership” program announced at the Bavarian summit could have an even wider and lasting reach for many countries. The G7 wants to help them with the loan-financed construction of roads, bridges, ports and airports. The G7 wants to mobilize almost $600 billion for this goal by 2027, US President Joe Biden said in Elmau, and the US will contribute a third.
Only China offers similar proposals on a global scale with its “New Silk Road” project. With its infrastructure aid program launched in 2013, the government in Beijing also wants to gain access to markets in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.
However, Russia is not future-oriented as a player on this stage. Russia would rather spend its last billions in fossil fuel export earnings on a war that is as ethically reprehensible as it is strategically senseless.
NATO welcomed two new members on Wednesday. The G-7 invited five heads of government, including the Prime Minister of India, to participate in the so-called “information circle” the previous two days. And what is Putin doing? While the West is on the move, as has rarely been the case until now, the Russian president is sitting alone at home – although he is currently on his first trip abroad since the war in Central Asia began. His one-man dictatorship paralyzed and isolated Russia more than ever: politically, economically and culturally.
Of course, Putin would also like to expand his sphere of influence. But like his dark Imperial-era models, he thinks only in terms of power and threat. Making fair offers to other countries, even winning them over as partners four-on-one, is not Putin’s style. His problem is: No one wants him as a partner either. Everyone is interested in its gas and oil. But Russia has no promising products to offer. Currently, pathetic new cars are coming off the production lines of Russian factories with reduced technological capabilities: no airbags, no navigation systems, only four wheels. Not only the Europeans and the Americans, but Putin’s supposed new friends in Beijing are just shaking their heads.
Trump, Putin’s nominee, is on the wane
Through various covert actions, trained KGB agent Vladimir Putin contributed to Donald Trump’s 2016 US election victory. Widely documented influence operations ranged from hacking Hillary Clinton’s email account to manipulating certain groups of voters through social media.
Putin rated Trump as unstable and simple-minded, and from Moscow’s point of view, this is the ideal candidate for the White House.
And once he got in there, Trump actually did, knowingly or not, what Putin wanted. Like no other president before him, Trump has divided American society as well as the Western alliance, much to the delight of the Kremlin’s arm-twisting overlord. The low point of America’s four confused years came when Trump ordered the withdrawal of American troops from Germany. Fortunately, this order, insane from today’s perspective, was never carried out.
For Putin, Trump’s return to the White House in the 2024 US presidential election would be a success. Putin could bet that a re-elected Trump would end support for Ukraine as part of a new “America First” populist wave, then play again on US withdrawal from Europe. Then the historical winner of the biggest war in Europe since 1945 will really be Vladimir Putin.
But for Trump, who for some time was already considered the most likely candidate for the presidency of the Republican Party, the outlook is getting worse.
Already at the end of May, sociologists reported a lead for Biden in the event of a Biden-Trump duel – despite his poor approval rating and despite rising inflation. And younger voters in particular, sociologists note, do not want Trump back in the White House.
A few days ago, Trump-affiliated Fox TV reported that according to Republican voters, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is already ahead of Trump.
The Supreme Court’s decision on abortion days ago, which 67 percent of American women oppose, is likely to hurt Trump and Republicans in swing states that always decide the election.
At the same time, more and more details are emerging from the January 6, 2021 Capitol storming hearings that not only incriminate Trump, but make him look like a fascist coup d’état. The percentage of Americans who want Trump to be impeached is now 58%.
All of this should make Republicans realize that it would be too risky to re-enter the race in 2024 with Trump. DeSantis’ views on Russia have so far been unclear. But the majority of Republicans today, as always, tend to take a harder line on Moscow.
In Germany, black and green is growing
Putin hoped that he would be able to detach Germany to some extent from NATO and bring it into a kind of special relationship with Russia. But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has already put a cog in his wheel with a “No” to Nord Stream 2 and the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
And it gets even worse for Russia. In the last election and in all recent polls, the two parties most vocal in criticizing Russia were stronger in Germany: the Greens and the CDU.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the CDU improved its result from 33.0 to 35.7 percent in the May 15 election. The Greens grew from 8.4 to 16.2 percent. All other parties – from the SPD to the AfD – suffered losses. For the first time, a black-green coalition is being formed in Germany’s most populous federal state.
In Schleswig-Holstein the picture on May 8 was similar. A black-green coalition also rules in Kiel.
None of the cases can be defined as a purely regional feature. At the federal level, there will also be a full black-green majority.
The latest RTL/ntv trend barometer shows a certain rigidity of the various parties in their attitude towards Russia. Supporters of the Greens most clearly support the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine – 81%. In second place is the CDU/CSU with 69%.
The fact that the Greens and CDU/CSU already dominate so much in Germany is some of the worst news for Putin right now. The man who likes to manipulate hearts and minds, and who for years created a political landscape friendly to Russia, is now reaching the limits of his capabilities in Germany.
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