Five weeks ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov delivered a routine speech that exploded the helm of the United States' “hegemony, self-interested” one. Since then, the 74-year-old veteran diplomat’s worldview has changed some overhead.
In an interview on Russian state television on Sunday, Mr. Lavrov listed the diseases caused by Europe (rather than the United States). In his story, America has transformed from an evil mastermind to an innocent bystander.
“Collection, war, crusades, Crimean War, Napoleon, World War I, Hitler,” Lavrov said. “If looking back, the Americans did not play any incitement, let alone burning roles.”
As President Trump turns upside down over decades of U.S. foreign policy, another dazzling swing has taken place in Russia on the Kremlin and state-controlled television: new information isn't that bad after all.
Almost overnight, Europe, rather than the United States, has become the source of instability in Russian narratives. In the election weekly on Rosia Channel 1 on Sunday night, host Dmitri Kiselyov described the “war party” in Europe as “large-large” by the United States, Russia and China, which would form “new structures of new structures.”
For more than a decade, the United States has been the main booing of the Kremlin propaganda machine – “hegemony”, “puppet” and “masters across the sea”. It seeks Russian destruction by striking Europeans, Ukrainians and terrorists with Moscow.
After Trump returned to the White House, Russian officials first said that it would not change much.
“There are very small differences except for the terminology,” Lavrov said in his speech on January 30.
But then on February 12, a call between Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, talks between the White House and the Kremlin in Saudi Arabia, a vote in the United States with Russia's support for Russia and a suspicion of Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky last week.
Over the course of weeks, it was clear that the second President Trump could implement more pro-Russian foreign policy than the first.
Mr. Putin led the change in tone. Leaders of the U.S.-led West, who once tried to “dismember and plunder Russia” last week, proposed that the U.S. dig out Russian rare earth metals and help develop aluminum production in Siberia. This is part of Putin's propaganda to Mr. Trump, as he wasted huge wealth potential from Russian resources.
On Friday, hours before Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Zelensky at the White House, Mr. Putin sent out his new, pro-U.S. message in the most unlikely place: the annual meeting of Russian domestic intelligence agencies, FSB, the vanguard of the Russian shadow war against the West FSB.
Mr Putin said the talks with the Trump administration “inspired some hope”, praising its “pragmatism” and calling for spies to resist “experts to undermine or damage the conversation that has already begun.”
The connection to Washington is so distinct that on Sunday, Russian state television showed a reporter asked how it was possible for a Kremlin spokesman to be “a few months ago, we publicly said we were almost enemies.”
“It's really impossible to imagine,” spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov replied, adding that U.S. foreign policy is now “in line with our vision.”
The Kremlin information maker is working to help the Russians understand it all. Some commentators are digging out historical precedents until Catherine the Great refuses to help Britain put down the American Revolution. Others say it is the American voters that change.
“The American people are tired of global empires,” film producer Karen Shakhnazarov explained last week.
In an interview with The New York Times, Yevgeny Popov's show “60 Minutes” was the most popular daily political plan on Russian state television – insisting that the talk of cooperation with the United States is not extraordinary, as business was carried out even in the Soviet Union.
“These are very natural processes that happen here,” Popov said. “We want peace, constructive and pragmatic and, most importantly, an equal relationship with the United States.”
Mr. Popov still pointed out that American weapons were killing Russian soldiers on the Ukrainian battlefield and he did not believe that he would soon have friendly relations with a country that “tanks fired at our people.”
Some of his guests went further. Aleksei Zhuravlyov, a Last week's “60 Minutes” said flame lawmakers known for their nuclear annihilation that threatens the United States, saying Russia can “make friends with the United States and rule the world.”
“Trump needs us,” Mr Zulavlov said. “Do we need Trump? We do. Do our interests overlap? They do it. Who are they? Oppose the EU.”
Russia’s fundamental interest in the interests of reconciliation with the United States is a homage to the country and its broad personal ties, especially among cultural and commercial elites. Ivan I., an American Russian relations scholar at Wellesley College.
“This duality of the American perspective has been a long time,” said Mr. Kurilla, who was a professor at the European University of St. Petersburg.
Mr. Popuff, a former correspondent for Russia's state television in New York, ticked some of the common grounds he believes Russia and the United States are: strong enforcement, protectionist policies, large military, market economy, “plus or minus” and strong law enforcement agencies.
“We both make a good sense,” Popov said in a video call last week, summing up, “If you want to know what Russians think, look in the mirror.”
The sudden prospect of ties with the United States has cheered the Russian public, which pollsters say is increasingly eager to end the Ukrainian war and sees negotiations with Washington as a prerequisite.
The Levada Center, an independent pollster based in Moscow, found in February that 75% of Russians will support the immediate end of the war, the highest reading since 2023 and approved 85% of meetings with the United States. Hopes of sanctions relief and returns from U.S. investment boosted Russian stocks by 10% after Trump-Putin call on February 12.
For some of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Russian war, Washington’s embrace was betrayed, as Putin has long described the invasion as a proxy war against American aggression. On the Telegram Social Messaging app, Russia's pro-war blogger was surprised last week by Mr. Putin's proposal to work with a U.S. company to extract the country's natural resources.
A nationalist telegraph blog with more than one million followers, two specialties, wondering how the “damn Yankees’ evil desire to steal Russian natural resources” discussion evolved into a “reciprocated collaboration with American partners” discussion.
But for Putin himself, there may be internal consistency in the swing towards Washington. He usually avoids marking the United States as an enemy of Russia.
Instead, Mr. Putin said it was the Western “neoliberal elite” who tried to impose their “strange” values on the world and seek the destruction of Russia while portraying American conservatives as Russian friends. This is a mirror image of the Soviet propaganda object, when American progressives were played as an ally of Moscow.
“In the United States, there is a big public that maintains traditional values and they are with us. We know that,” Putin said in 2022.
Milana Mazaeva and Alina Lobzina contributed the report.
