The Kremlin Got Nervous

Trump pressured Putin and it worked.

The so-called energy truce - a pause in the aggressor country Russia's attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure - was the result of US President Donald Trump's pressure on Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin. By coming out with such an initiative, the head of the White House was de facto determining what tools he had to influence the Russian Federation. Since there was a ceasefire, therefore, such tools were found. Most likely, they were economic.

February 5, the Strategic Arms Control Treaty, in which both the United States and Russia participated, expired. This made Moscow nervous. Why? Because the Russian Federation has a "gross" nuclear potential, and there are virtually no prospects for modernizing it. At the same time, the United States has unlimited opportunities to create modern means for waging nuclear war.

This opinion in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA was expressed by Russian opposition activist Olga Kurnosova.

- How do you regard the so-called energy truce? The de facto head of the United States is asking the terrorist Putin not to carry out terrorist attacks on a neighboring state. I mean, what does this even look like? After the "truce", when Russia resumed attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, Trump declared that Putin kept his word. To what extent does this U.S. position encourage the Kremlin to launch new aggression, to launch new, even more brazen demands?"

- I would separate what Trump states publicly and what he actually thinks. Let's not talk about the timing of the ceasefire, because according to Peskov, it was not a week, but three days, until the first of February.

In my opinion, Trump is testing to what extent he can put pressure on Putin and what tools he has in his hands. And what he said relates exactly to his understanding of the effectiveness of his tools. We don't know what he talked to Putin about, what he told him, but in any case Putin was impressed.

There are quite a lot of words now saying that it is quite possible that the Abu Dhabi talks may end with a ceasefire (the interview was recorded on February 5. - Ed.). I leave aside the moral and ethical aspect of the issue, because, in my opinion, morality and ethics do not play a special role for Trump.

- Analysts at The Wall Street Journal believe that Trump has a very real opportunity to force Putin to compromise, in particular, they believe that today Putin is in a weakened position. They have purely mathematically correlated the number of losses the Russian army has suffered with the kilometers it has been able to seize in Ukraine. At the same time, the strategic arms control treaty expires on February 5, after which formally both the US and Russia have their hands untied. Do you believe that Trump could hand over Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? In your estimation, is Trump really ready to pressure Putin?"

- In my opinion, the ceasefire story is a story about Trump being able to pressure Putin. That is certainly the case. And accordingly, as I said, he has been testing the methods by which he is able to exert that pressure. In this situation, can Trump transfer Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? In my opinion, he can.

But, again, we don't fully understand what Trump said to Putin, what he got as a pressure mechanism and how Donald Trump's next steps will be. So I would take some kind of pause for the time being and, most importantly, see how the negotiations in Abu Dhabi play out.

- Analysts at The Telegraph have drawn attention to the complex situation with gold in Russia. At one time it was the sharp rise in the price of gold at the beginning of a full-scale war that increased the value of Russian reserves by more than 200 billion dollars, which helped to compensate for the loss of oil and gas revenues and avoid serious problems in the economy. However, recent weeks have seen an 18% drop in the price of gold. According to The Telegraph, this has called into question the viability of this resource for Russia, especially against the backdrop that Russia has already sold off 71% of gold from the National Welfare Fund since 2022. Do you think this could deny Putin the ability to continue the war even without a collapse of the Russian economy?"

- The collapse of the Russian economy is a more complex story than the gold price alone. Based on what we see from recent events, the situation in the Russian economy is very, very bad. So when we talk about the possibility of a ceasefire, it is primarily related to the problems in the Russian economy.

I assume that what Trump is doing is to put pressure on some pain points related to the Russian economy. In my opinion, this is the most important thing.

With regard to the termination of the Strategic Arms Control Treaty, I think this is a more painful story for Russia than for the US. It is not by chance that we see nervous comments on this from Peskov.

Why nervous? Because it is precisely because of the collapse of the Russian economy that Russia is now unable to carry out any modernization of its nuclear weapons. World science has advanced far, and it is natural that nuclear weapons are also experiencing innovation - they too are being modernized and are also changing.

Today Russia has a large nuclear potential "gross", but we do not understand its qualitative component. And since the economy is bad, science is in an absolute doldrums. Putin's cronies are sitting in key positions - Rosatom is controlled by Kirienko and his people. Mikhail Kovalchuk sits at the head of the Kurchatov Institute, and so on down the list.

Therefore, we should not expect any innovative solutions in the field of nuclear weapons; Russia simply does not have any capabilities. And if we talk about what the United States is concerned about in this context, it is much more concerned about the fact that China is rapidly building up its nuclear arsenals, while having the ability, primarily economic, to build them up in a modern form.

Therefore, the termination of such a treaty is a danger primarily for Russia, not for the United States.

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