Ventriloquism
the document Moscow wrote
By Joe Zeigler
Summary: Trump's new National Security Strategy reads like it was drafted in Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it "largely consistent with our vision." He's right. The document offers Russia "strategic stability" while accusing America's European allies of "civilizational erasure." It endorses Ukraine's survival as a "viable state"—not sovereign, not free, just viable. Bloomberg transcripts reveal the 28-point Ukraine "peace plan" was written from Russia's position, then handed to Trump's envoy to present as American. Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt called it language "from bizarre minds of the Kremlin." Two men, one foreign policy. Ventriloquism.
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt read Trump's new National Security Strategy and posted his reaction: "It's language that one otherwise only finds coming out of some bizarre minds of the Kremlin."
Former Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins was blunter: "The happiest country reading this is Russia."
They're not wrong. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed it. "The adjustments we are seeing," he said, "are largely consistent with our vision." Putin's man looked at 33 pages of official United States foreign policy and nodded approval.
That should tell you everything. But it doesn't tell you how we got here.
Three weeks before the NSS dropped, Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's man, in Miami. They drafted a 28-point "peace plan" for Ukraine. No Ukrainians in the room. No Europeans. Just a real estate developer with no diplomatic experience and a Kremlin advisor who runs Russia's sovereign wealth fund.
The Guardian's Luke Harding noticed something odd about the text. Phrases like "it is expected that" and "to enshrine" read awkwardly in English but flow naturally in Russian. Standard constructions in Russian official documents, stilted in ours. The syntax was a fingerprint.
Bloomberg later obtained transcripts of phone calls between Kremlin officials discussing the plan. In one, Dmitriev tells Putin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov that he'll pass a draft to Witkoff and Kushner. Ushakov says, "We need the maximum, don't you think?" Dmitriev replies: "I think we'll just make this paper from our position, and I'll informally pass it along... And let them do it as if it's their own."
As if it's their own. That's not diplomacy. That's ventriloquism.
The 28-point plan asks Ukraine to surrender Crimea, recognize Russian control of Donetsk and Luhansk, cap its military, and abandon any hope of NATO membership. It asks Ukraine to withdraw from territory it currently holds so Russia doesn't have to fight for it. Republican senators called it "Russia's wish list." The State Department insisted it was American, "with input from the Russian side." Like a hostage reading a ransom note at gunpoint.
Biden's 2022 strategy mentioned human rights over a dozen times. Trump's mentions it zero. Biden's condemned Russia's "brutal and unprovoked war." Trump's has no censure of Russia at all. The word "threat" appears throughout the document, but never attached to Moscow. Instead, Russia is offered "strategic stability"—a phrase so warm you could heat borscht with it.
Germany's government spokesman called parts of the document "ideology rather than strategy." Berlin noted that the NSS doesn't classify Russia as a threat. "We stand by NATO's joint analysis," he said, "according to which Russia is a danger and a threat to trans-Atlantic security." The Americans, apparently, do not.
But the NSS has plenty of harsh words. For Europe.
America's allies—the ones who've stood with us since 1945, who host our bases, buy our weapons, and bleed alongside us—get accused of "civilizational erasure." The document warns that "within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European." By which they mean non-White. They just typed the quiet part.
Former French Ambassador Gérard Araud called the Europe section "a far-right pamphlet." The NSS attacks the European Union for "censorship of free speech," "cratering birthrates," and says America's goal should be "to help Europe correct its current trajectory" by backing "patriotic European parties"—the new term for movements that want to dismantle the EU from within.
Putin has been cultivating those parties for years. Now the United States has joined the project.
EU Council President António Costa put it plainly: "If we read closely the part about Ukraine, we can understand why Moscow shares this vision. The objective in this strategy is not a fair and durable peace. It's only about the end of hostilities, and the stability of relations with Russia."
The NSS endorses Ukraine's "survival as a viable state." Viable. Not sovereign. Not democratic. Not free. Viable. Like a hospital patient with stable vitals and no prognosis.
CNN's analysis put it simply: "'America Alone' might be the simplest précis." The document declares that "the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over." It calls for ending NATO expansion—another Kremlin demand handed over without a shot fired.
I've watched thirteen presidents. I've seen bad foreign policy. Nixon's Cambodia. Reagan's Iran-Contra. Bush's Iraq. Obama's Libya. Biden's Afghanistan. But I've never seen a president release a document and have his adversary's spokesman announce, publicly, that it matches their vision exactly.
PrumpTutin isn't a joke. It's a job description. Two men, one foreign policy, drafted in Miami with Kremlin fingerprints on the syntax.
Peskov was right. Largely consistent with their vision. That's the whole problem.
Further Reading
Reuters, "Trump Administration Says Europe Risks 'Civilisational Erasure'"
The Guardian, "Trump's Ukraine Peace Deal Appears to Be Translated From Russian"
Slate, "A stunning leak sheds light on the Trump admin's cozy ties with Russia"
Al Jazeera, "EU slams critical US security strategy, notes 'changed relationship'"
TIME, "Trump's National Security Strategy Sparks European Backlash"
CNN, "Trump lays bare his contempt for Europe in blistering new national security plan"
Axios, "How Trump's 28-point plan for Ukraine shocked the world"
