Alexander Hara: Dmitriev's Visit To The USA Failed

The U.S. has many more tools to hurt the Russian economy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev a "Russian propagandist." So far, no clear results of his visit to Washington have been seen.

What to expect from Putin's envoy's visit to Washington? About this site Charter97.org talked to Ukrainian diplomat and political scientist, director of the Center for Defense Strategies Alexander Hara:

- Absolutely we should agree with such a formulation that Kirill Dmitriev is a propagandist. Dmitriev is trying to exploit the weaknesses in the Republican mindset and talk about what crazy economic prospects could come if this war ends on Russia's terms. And about how Russia has always been friendly to the United States and so on.

All of this is nonsense and lies. And really, only idiots can believe it. But by the way, he did meet with one of the Republican congresswomen, Anna Paulina Luna. She wrote that there could be a trade turnover of hundreds of trillions of dollars and so on. While Russia's total exports are somewhere around half a trillion dollars: primarily with China, India, and other countries where they sell their energy resources. And there has never been a significant turnover with the United States for a simple reason - the Americans do not need so much energy resources. And the Russian Federation does not export so many weapons.

This was a failed visit for a simple reason: what Donald Trump hoped for did not work. He tried to gently, without pressuring Vladimir Putin, to offer him all sorts of very favorable terms for ending the war. He talked about the fact that Ukraine would not be in NATO, and that by and large Crimea could not be returned, and that it was necessary to freeze the war along the contact front line. All this could have been taken by a normal dictator as help to get out of a desperate situation. But not for Putin, as he feels he can get more. And that was the reason for the sanctions that the Americans imposed on Rosneft and Lukoil.

So Kirill Dmitriev's visit accomplished absolutely nothing. The only goal he achieved is that those sympathizers of the Russian Federation (as we call them, "useful idiots") in the ranks of the Republican Party, can use his statements as an argument: say, we do not need this war, we are not going to help the Ukrainians, Russia is our friend, it is a conservative Christian state, let's be friends against China and the Islamic world.

Obviously, there is no basis for this. Russia is not a Christian state, nor is it conservative; it is a feudal entity. And the number of Muslims in Russia, if we consider Russia a European state, is greater than in Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, France and so on.

So no - the Russian Federation did not achieve anything with this visit. But, unfortunately, Dmitriev has played and will try to do so. My hope is that such efforts will ultimately fail. And in the end Donald Trump will realize that in order to stop this war, it is necessary not only to tell something, but to act. And the first action is to put pressure on Russia, is sanctions. And the United States has quite a few more tools to hurt the Russian economy.

There are many more points on which to crush the Russians: foreign debt, financial transactions and so on.

- Trump repeated the statement that he is not going to meet with Putin unless there are concrete decisions on Ukraine. Today, the US president reacted sharply to the launch of a Russian Burevestnik missile. Is this a qualitative change in Trump's position or should we expect more surprises from him?"

- I think Trump will change his rhetoric for a long time. It's hardly a permanent change. The cup of patience is not overflowing yet.

First of all, the Storm Petrel is a "wunderwaffe" from the science fiction series. In Soviet times, when there were resources and more brains, they were not capable of making such a thing. And now they did and showed only Putin and Valery Gerasimov at that. If you want to really "take the pontoon", at least show an element of the missile so that everyone can see that you have something similar. By the way, there was a story with "Oreshnik" when it exploded, killed engineers and someone else. In Russia, they are not capable of any breakthrough actions. They have neither technology nor brains. Another second question: do they have the resources, even if the prototype is successfully tested, to increase production?

Trump sees this not only as a threat, but as an insult. The United States has enough nuclear weapons to destroy Russia. If there is a threat to the United States, he will definitely behave differently than he would with respect to Ukraine or Europe.

Most importantly: Trump's plan is based on Russian proposals. What Steve Whitkoff brings back from Moscow is critically converted into the so-called peace plan that they want to impose on Ukraine. It seems to me that an extremely important event has taken place: the preparation of this summit in Budapest was led by Senator Marco Rubio. And unlike Whitkoff, he has plenty of understanding of Russia and diplomatic experience. He has served on the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committee for a long time. He's seen as a hawk in this administration with respect to Russia. So I think this is absolutely the right reaction.

Of course, Trump should have gotten fed up by now and should have dramatically changed his position. Again, there are two logical lines of behavior to end this war. First, arms to Ukraine, and second, undermining the resource base of the Russian Federation so that it is incapable of waging this war. This is the only way to stop the war.

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