“Russia is unlikely to abandon the anti-Western axis it seeks to build”

Lhe autumn is kind to Vladimir Putin. Slowly but surely, the Russian armed forces are advancing in the Donbass and the Kursk region. The BRICS+ summit, organized in Kazan [en Russie, du 22 au 24 octobre], showed that his country was far from international isolation: even the UN Secretary General was on board. And, in Georgia, the legislative elections of October 26 were won by the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party. Certainly, in Moldova, it was the pro-European Maïa Sandu who was re-elected as president, but the yes vote in the referendum on membership of the European Union narrowly won and the parliamentary elections of 2025 could complicate gives it.

A key was missing from this promising picture, Donald Trump's victory in the American presidential election. It is now done. In 2016, Russians could not hold back their joy at the election of the man whose career they have been following closely for many years: the Duma deputies popped the champagne while the president of the public television channel RT, Margarita Simonian, announced that she wanted to drive through Moscow with the American flag hanging from her car window.

This time, the atmosphere seems different. In its official statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry says it does not “feeding on illusions” on the new president and the new composition of Congress, because anti-Russian sentiments and the desire to contain Russia are widely shared by both American political camps. Vladimir Putin waited until Thursday evening, November 7, to congratulate Donald Trump. Previously, its spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, recalled that the United States was at the top of the list of “unfriendly countries” and participated “directly and indirectly” to the war against Russia.

Ukrainian front in difficulty

Hypocritical posture so as not to compromise the one who had spent his first term justifying himself on his Russian connections? Or disappointment with Trump I who did not lift anti-Russian sanctions and authorized, in 2017, the delivery to Ukraine of lethal weapons that his predecessor Barack Obama refused out of prudence?

The first hot issue on which we will see Trump and Putin interact will be that of the war in Ukraine, support for which was the most divisive issue between the Democratic and Republican candidates during the campaign. Trump has repeated so many times that he will end the war in twenty-four hours that he will have to do it now to prove that he is up to the challenge, unlike the previous administration.

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