Compiled 3 July, updated 18 July 2025. Above : Alexander Dugin
Françoise Thom, French historian and writer, sovietologist, lecturer in contemporary history at the Sorbonne in Paris, specialist in post-communist Russia, is the author of works and political analyses on that country and its leaders. This is an excerpt from The Russian Project for the United States.
Numerous insinuations are circulating in the Russian media that the Trump phase is somehow the initial phase of the American revolution. Trump plays the same role as Zhirinovsky: he breaks down taboos, makes Americans addicted to transgression, all in the form of a media or clownish spectacle that prevents moral reaction and rational interpretation. The Kremlin celebrates the defeat of liberal elites. The first instinct is to make the most of this prosperous period. But we are also concerned about winning the second round.
Dugin, who is never short of conspiracies, warns: the Trumpian revolution is too good to be true. A part of the Deep State was definitely involved: Trump ‘would not have been able to make such radical changes, and would not even have managed to get elected and survive until he took office, if he had not received exceptional support from very influential forces within the Deep State itself’. This second Deep State is composed, according to
Dugin, by Silicon Valley billionaires, whom he distrusts, and his sympathies run to populist conservatives like Steve Bannon. We understand his reluctance: there is a gulf between the patchwork state and the empire. The Kremlin’s course of action is clear. Russia must encourage Trump’s imperialist ambitions by pushing him to annex Canada and Greenland. ‘So what need will Trump have for Europe? “He doesn’t care if it dies,” explains Solovyov, who believes we must hurry: ” Trump has given us four years to prepare for the great European war that is inevitable. But for this effort to fully bear fruit, for Russia to re-establish its bases in Eastern Europe, to return to Berlin, it is necessary for ‘Vance or someone like him to succeed Trump in 2028 ‘. Dugin also views Trump’s ambitions of conquest with great favour, but for an even more important reason: he wants the US to transform itself from a thalassocratic power into a continental power, because only this transformation will prevent the return of liberal elites to power and ensure the sustainability of the American conservative turn.
What place does the Kremlin reserve for this reformed America? The Russian-American condo that Putin’s propaganda dangles in front of MAGA’s useful idiots is nothing but a diversion. When Duma deputy Adalbi Shkhagoshev proposed offering Trump ‘ the opportunity to lead the construction of a multipolar world’, he was sternly rebuked by presenter Yevgeny Popov: ‘No!’ We won’t allow him to govern anything anymore. “ A Russian foreign policy analyst in Moscow recently told New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman: “Trump does not understand that Putin is simply manipulating him to achieve his main goal: to undermine America’s international standing, destroy its network of security alliances, especially in Europe, and destabilise the United States from within, thus making the world safer for Putin and Xi.“
The US will never be considered an ally by the Russians. The latter’s thirst for American humiliation is far from being quenched, as Putin’s talks with Witkoff, aimed, among other things, at revealing to the world the prodigious stupidity of the American leadership,prove.
The Kremlin’s situation vis-à-vis America resembles that of a spider bitten by a spider-spider, an insect that reproduces by laying eggs inside a previously paralysed spider by injecting it with venom. The larvae feed on the live prey.
Russia therefore intends to feed off the energy released by an immobilised America, pump in investments and technology transfers and draw from it the human resources that will enable it to realise its project of world hegemony.
Françoise Thom studied classical literature, spent four years in the USSR from 1973 to 1978, graduated in Russian and taught history of the USSR and international relations at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Notes
- A. Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki ( The Foundations of Geopolitics ), I, 10.1.
- Ibid, V,1.
- Ibid, V,1.
- Jonathan Chait, ‘The real reason Trump rebuked Zelensky’, The Atlantic, 28 February 2025.
- A. Prokhanov, ‘Rasti, inatche sojrout’ (‘We must lie down in order not to be eaten’), Argoumenty i Fakty, 29/10/08.
Trump manipulation or US-Russia alliance?
No one knows, the fact remains that the surrender of Ukraine – until early July 2025 – seems to be desired by both Russia and the USA :
- The lack of new US sanctions allows restricted goods and funds to enter Russia. President Trump issued no new restrictions on Russia this year, effectively allowing Moscow to acquire the money and materials it needs in its conflict with Ukraine.
- Donald Trump interrupts the delivery of the US missile umbrella to the Ukrainians, a wake-up call for Europeans. Major cities will be more vulnerable to Russian bombardment due to the freezing of US aid to the most crucial air defences. The Europeans are unable to quickly fill the void left in Kiev’s arsenal.
Below Alexander Dugin writes a revealing message of a prior US – Russian agreement to the war in Ukraine . He did so on X : “Trump’s power cannot be his weakness. Fear , lies, dependence on the intelligence services of a foreign power are not compatible with real Power. Make Trump great again! Publish the files concerning Epstein- who was allegedly linked to Russian intelligence (FSB), kill the Deep State, put Israel in its place, stop helping Kiev. As you promised‘.
But, in the end, the confusion created by Trump’s constant contradictory statements – on Ukraine but also on everything else, e.g. the recipe for Coca-Cola – foster the chaos Putin wanted.
