US President Donald Trump’s recent comments asserting the Kremlin needed to come to the negotiating table and make concessions, or face crushing new American tariffs and sanctions, ignited objections across the Russian media space on Thursday, and even some nasty language about perfidious Americans.
The US leader in a Wednesday post on his media platform Truth Social declared his “love” for the Russian people and respect for Soviet sacrifices during World War II, but warned that if Russia’s war against Ukraine isn’t ended soon he will deploy American tariffs, taxes and sanctions to strong-arm the Kremlin into an agreement.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
An early indicator of how Trump’s message was playing in official Russia was offered by Pravda newspaper correspondent Aleksey Zhivov in a Wednesday afternoon article: “Trump has given Russia a new ultimatum. This time he said that unless the Kremlin makes a deal about Ukraine, then there will be taxes, sanctions, and excises on everything that Russia sells the US and other countries.”
Kim’s Human Blitzkrieg – Ukrainian Troops Reveal North Korean Tactics in Kursk
Vladimir Solovyev, a leading Russian propagandist, in Wednesday evening comments broadcast nationally by the Rossiya 1 television channel, lampooned Trump’s warnings, at one point doing an impression of a Christian preacher from the US South. After that Solovyev pivoted to a nuclear threat.
“Ooh, several billion people are probably afraid right now. Ooh, how terrifying! Ooh! I feel like I am the American President myself (switches to English) ‘Well! Talk To Jesus!’ (switches to Russian) And then what?...It’s just too much already. It’s as if (Trump expects) everyone here is going to gasp and say ‘That’s it (we give up)!’”
Speaking via camera, he said, directly to Trump and his supporters Solovyev seemed to warn of a Russian nuclear strike against the US: “Don’t fret. Everything will be bad (for you). And then very bad. And then everything will be a total Oreshnik. And then things will become very nice. Just not right away. And not for everyone.”
Russian strike planners launched an Oreshnik missile, the first intermediate-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile ever fired in a war, to hit the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Nov. 22. The weapon was loaded with conventional warheads.
President Vladimir Putin in a follow-up television address said the Oreshnik missile was newly-developed, impossible to intercept, and proof of Russia’s military might. Ukraine’s national military agency HUR said the attack damaged some factory buildings and that searchers found components more than two decades old in the Russian missile’s debris.
Karen Shakhnazarov, a film producer and political commentator frequently appearing on Solovyev’s “news” program warned that the US was Russia’s enemy and that negotiations and a Trump-Putin summit could be a trap.
“I am not expecting that those talks will help the situation at all. Things might get even worse. They could become a whole lot worse. I, for one, listening to all those declarations (by US officials) that the two presidents will even meet. Maybe there will be a phone call. But a meeting,” Sakhnazarov told viewers. “And it is absolutely possible that Russia is going to get presented with conditions that are completely unacceptable. And then there could be more massive arms transfers (by the US) to Ukraine. And, God forbid, maybe even nuclear weapons! This is possible! He (Trump) could do that!”
Aleksandr Sladkov, a “combat correspondent” often appearing on Russian state television, said Russia and Russians could and would defy Trump pressure.
“Trump has threatened us twice in one day. No illusions. This is a Capitalist who doesn’t care about other countries. But no worries, Russia is like a KAMAZ (heavy truck) – the more you load on it, the better it drives. It’s stupid to talk about (the US) blockading one-sixth of the Earth’s surface,” Sladkov told close to 900,000 followers of his personal television channel.
The state-run news agency RIA Novosti took Trump to task for, it said, getting facts wrong and claiming the Soviet Union lost about twice as many people fighting Germany’s invasion in World War II, than was actually the case. In the Truth Social post Trump put the figure at 60 million.
RIA Novosti shot back: “According to official Russian data, during the Great Patriotic War, the country lost 27 million people, both civilian and military. Russian authorities have more than once declared that certain Western states are trying to rewrite history. Putin has stated that the country [Russia] is obliged to protect the truth about the Great Patriotic War and to resist attempts to falsify that history.”
Sladkov said he was infuriated at Trump’s assertion that the Soviet Union “helped” the US win World War II: “Those Anglo-Saxons (the Britain-led Commonwealth and the US) were barely able in 1944 to take part in hostilities in Europe. Those Yankees try to call their landing at Normandy a real battle. This is against the backdrop of giant battles won by us in Stalingrad, Voronezh, Kursk, Kharkiv, and Berlin!”
The Kremlin-sponsored information group Dva Mayora, the de facto main social platform for Russian ground forces, like Sladkov, chose insulting slang to describe America and Americans (пендосы), and argued Trump and his team could not have gotten Russia – which is wise to American tricks – more wrong.“This is a public ultimatum. Trump has an awful understanding of the leadership of our country, for him to propose such a deal. Under pressure an agreement cannot take place…Why should Russia believe these пендосы, or that they aren’t just trying to swindle us?” the group’s authors told their 1.3 million followers.
As a response to Trump’s pitch, the group published a patriotic music video entitled “Russia Forwards!” that profiled robots manufacturing missiles, Russian Orthodox churches and priests, young men boxing, the Kremlin, and Russian artillery, strike jets, tanks, and infantry. The video leads off with a bear and ends with a Christ image.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
