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By Brian McDonald, Substack, 11/28/25

The Washington Post gets the symptoms right, but fumbles the diagnosis in Thursday’s piece by Ellen Francis , headlined “Europe strains to speak with one voice as US, Russia decide Ukraine’s fate.” The noise inside the Western camp isn’t really about “values” or virtue, rather it’s concerned with cold hard strategy and geography; and old, stubborn, priorities that won’t go away.

Different blocs want different futures, and they’re all tugging in directions no amount of Atlanticist sermonising can reconcile. That’s the real truth behind every row over Ukraine, Russia, China or military spending. They’re not actually arguing about principle, that’s for irrelevant fanatics in think tanks and over in the hothouse of X.

For Washington the hierarchy is clear and cold: China is the existential problem, the only rival capable of closing the distance. Russia is an irritant… armed, considered volatile, but ultimately regional in its reach. Previous administrations used Ukraine as a tool, a way of punching Moscow hard enough to free America’s hands for Beijing. The trouble is, that trick has been played, and everyone knows it.

Across the water, the current (deeply unpopular) leadership of the Germany–France–UK axis sees things through the harsher lens of proximity and history. Russia is the threat that sits across the fence, whereas China is a profitable abstraction (Poland and the Baltics disagree with this, but they have no real say). Meanwhile, the United States is the security blanket they all clutch at night, praying it won’t be snatched away after the next electoral mood swing in Iowa.

But even this loose alliance buckles under its own contradictions. The Baltics and Poland want Russia ground into the clay. France and Germany want it bruised but still breathing; they will need its resources and huge market again when this is all over. The UK, now reduced to being a freelance actor, wants whatever preserves the illusion that it still matters in the grand game after Brexit.

This is sold as a “united front.” But it isn’t, it’s a choir where every singer insists they’re singing lead.

Then there are the southern Europeans (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, plus the Hungarian and Slovak outliers). They are not closet Russophiles. They are simply grown weary of the endless crusades. What they want is cheaper energy, fewer embargoes, and a foreign policy that doesn’t behave like an unpaid internship for Washington. And above all, no spiritual sequel to the Cold War, this time with China because they’ve all experienced enough imperial hangovers to know how those usually end.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Americans still harbour the fading hope that Russia might pivot against China. Moscow won’t do this, especially not while the West insists it must get down on its knees first, so the most Washington can realistically hope for is a neutral Russia. That’s not a fantasy because the Kremlin has recently been shown more than a few glimpses of what dependency on Beijing actually means. And it doesn’t like what it’s seen.

So yes, “Europe” strains to speak with one voice because it’s a mishmash of regional interests and no underlying unity of vision or purpose.

In short: Washington wants a China-first strategy, Northern Europe wants a Russia-first strategy and Southern Europe wants peace, cheap gas, and the return of Russian tourists who spend without looking too closely at the bill.

Once you see the map for what it is, a collection of competing anxieties stitched together, the discord starts making sense. Then, of course, there is the final conundrum: Russia itself is just as European as France or Britain (if not even more so the way demographics are headed) and that reality will eventually have to be confronted and accommodated.

By Paul Robinson, Website, 11/27/25

In my book Russian Liberalism, I noted the tendencies of modern Russian liberals to believe in a version of the ‘Two Russia’s Theory’. In its contemporary manifestation, this theory maintains that there are two Russias – the dark, barbaric masses on the one hand, and the enlightened intelligentsia on the other. The first is conservative, imperialistic, pro-regime, and Asiatic. The second is liberal, peaceful, anti-regime, and European. As Boris Nemtsov put it, “The Russian people, for the most part, are divided into two uneven groups. On part is the descendants of serfs, people with a slavish consciousness. There are very many of them and their leader is V. V. Putin. The other (smaller) part is born free, proud, and independent. It does not have a leader but needs one.”

An associated concept is that of Homo Sovieticus (or homosos for short) – the Soviet Man. According to those who believe in his existence, Homo Sovieticus is a product of the repressive nature of the Soviet system, which created a people replete with negative characteristics, such as subservience, deceitfulness, and national chauvinism. Adherents to the Two Russias Theory see the root of Russia’s problems as lying in the prevalence of Homo Sovieticus, and Russia’s salvation as lying in the replacement of Homo Sovieticus with a new national character, something that requires a thorough process of decommunization. A very similar logic lay behind the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, many of whose supporters saw it as leading to the elimination of the Sovok (another prejorative word for the Soviet-style person) and his replacement with the European.

With this in mind, it has been interesting of late to read several books which directly impinge on the issue of the Post-Soviet person – Homo Postsovieticus. Is the Post-Soviet Person Homo Sovieticus reincarnated? Or is he/she something completely different?

First off are two books by exiled Russian liberal intellectuals – Sergei Medvedev and Mikhail Shishkin. Unsurprisingly, they are passionate believers in the Two Russias Theory and in the idea that the root of Russia’s problems is the continued dominance of the Soviet personality with all its negative traits. In short, the fundamental cause of Russia’s autocratic political system and aggressive foreign policy is the mentality of the Russian people .

Medvedev reveals his worldview early on his book with the kind of statement that nowadays would probably be considered rather offensive in polite Western liberal circles. He writes: “Russia was the only one of the early empires of the modern era that survived a clash with the West, while all of the others [Aztecs, Incas, Persians, Indians, Chinese, and Japanese] … succumbed to the pressure of a superior civilization.” Russia, in other words, is an archaic non-Western civilization, and its problems derive from its failure to submit to “superior” civilization, i.e. the West.

Thus Medvedev remarks that “Russia is archaic.” The “practice of violence … runs through the whole of Russian society,” he writes, “the people are submissive, inert, fatalistic, and prepared for any sacrifices.” According to Medvedev, Russia suffers from “the immunodeficiency of society and low social capital. … a lack of trust … social atomization and a fragmented and  embittered society. … This is a paternalistic, dependent society. … As a result the individual has developed a disdainful attitude to life.” Medvedev concludes that “Throughout the centuries, Russia has hung over Europe as the heir to the Asiatic hordes from the East,” and that the need to resist the Russian threat is what has created a common European identity. In 1945, he claims, the Allies failed to finish the job – defeating only the Germans, but leaving Russia alone. “It is time for the West to finish the work of 1945,” he concludes.

Mikhail Shishkin similarly desires Russia’s military defeat, and similarly believes in the Two Russia’s Theory and the psychological deficiencies of the Russian masses. He writes:

Russia has been in the unique situation of having its territory shared by two spiritually and culturally disparate nations. Both are Russian, both speak the same language – but mentally they are opposites. One head is furnished with a European education, a love of freedom and the idea that Russia is part of a global human civilization; it believes that the whole of Russian history is a bloody slough from which the country needs to be extricated, before being transformed into a liberal European society. This head refuses to live in a patriarchal dictatorship, and demands freedom, rights, and a constitution. The other head has a traditional view of the world; it believes that Holy Rus is an island surrounded by a hostile ocean, and that only the father in the Kremlin and his iron fist can save this island and its people, and maintain order in Russia.

A few pages later, Shishkin takes up the theme again:

The two “Russian nations” live cheek by jowl on the same streets, but in parallel realities. The majority of Russians are mentally still in the Middle Ages, and believe the zombie box that is television when it is tells them that the fatherland is surrounded by enemies. The rest, however, are too well travelled, too well read, and have surfed the internet. … These Russians take to the street and believe that Putin and his henchmen belong in prison; for the other Russians, the state is sacred and untouchable. The former believe that the country has to be led out of the bloody swamp that is Russian history, and towards a liberal European system. For the latter, only a tsar with an iron fist can guarantee order.

According to Shishkin, “In Russia, reason, knowledge, culture, intelligence and discernment make people unhappy.” There is only one way of out of this mess – Russia must suffer a defeat similar to that suffered by Germany in 1945. The people, of course, may object, “But any historical process is always preceded by an avant-garde. Progressives are ready to fight for democracy, and will take the masses with them.”

But are all these claims about Homo Sovieticus and the psychological failings of the Russian masses true? According to several recent academic studies, no.

A good starting point for a rebuttal comes with Gulnaz Sharafutdinova’s short book The Afterlife of the “Soviet Man”: Rethinking Homo Sovieticus. In this Sharaftudinova charts the development of the idea that communism had created a particular mentality in the people under it, starting with Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz and Bulgarian dissident Georgy Markov. She then examines the originator of the term Homo Sovieticus  – Alexander Zinoviev – before moving onto to perestroika-era Soviet sociologist Yuri Levada, who claimed to have identified the characteristics of Homo Sovieticus by means of a large-scale survey of Soviet citizens.

Levada’s survey work gave the concept of Homo Sovieticus the gloss of scientific legitimacy and proved to be enormously influential. But Sharafutdinova criticizes Levada for relying on discredited theories such as Talcott Parson’s “structural functionalism” and the concept of totalitarianism. She complains that Levada’s work shifts blame for Russia’s problems from the government to the people, and that it is so wrapped up with moralizing language of good and bad that criticizing it has become almost impossible.

Sharaftudinova prefers the work of Soviet sociologist Natalia Kozlova. Whereas Levada relied on the quantitative analysis of survey data, Kozlova engaged in qualitative research, analyzing letters, diaries, letters, and other private documents written by Soviet citizens, in order to gain an understanding of what really made them tick. She came to entirely different conclusions. As Sharaftudinova notes, Kozlova concluded that “Soviet citizens could not be atomized or passive. Instead, they were active participants in making and remaking Soviet society.” From this, Sharaftudinova argues that we must rethink the theory of Homo Sovieticus and recognize “the constancy of human agency” in all human societies.

Another admirer of Kozlova and critic of Levada is British academic Jeremy Morris. In his blog Post-Socialism, Morris has argued that quantitative data can be extremely misleading as a means of judging popular attitudes. Instead, he advocates for an anthropological approach. It is only by living among people and careful observation of them that you can determine what it is they really think. Surveys just tell you how it is that they decided to answer the questions posed, not how they understood the questions, what they meant by their answers, and whether they were even answering honestly.

Morris takes up this theme in his book Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance. It contains a lot of academic theory, which as a historian not trained in theory, tends to go right over my head. I hope that Morris will excuse me if I have gotten this wrong, but one of the key takeaways seems to be that things in Russia are more complex than simple models of an all-powerful, repressive state and a submissive, inert population would suggest. In his conclusion he comments that people seek out places where they can act autonomously. Because these actions can only be observed “using micro-level methods of ethnographic engagement, the automatic assumption is to dismiss them as irrelevant.” But they are not. Politics at the macro level may have been suppressed, but “the micropolitical struggle continues,” even if only in the form of crafts such as woodworking or knitting. Crochet and painting may not be high politics but they do bring people together and push them “towards actualizing a life of community and autonomy, and a productivist one at that.” This is a community with ethics and sociality, revealing a people who are not quite the passive, unethical creatures of Homo Sovieticus imagination.

Another critic of Levada and the concept of Homo Sovieticus is New York University professor Eliot Borenstein, author of our final book: Soviet Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism in Contemporary Russia.

In his book, Borenstein, uses contemporary Russian culture – films, TV, novels, poetry, internet fan fiction, and the like – to study several different negative Russian stereotypes – the Sovok, the Vatnik, the New Russian (the nouveaux riches who made their fortunes in the 1990s), and the Orc. These stereotypes reflect a deep post-Soviet identity crisis as well as a sense of shame about what Russia has become. But though the stereotypes reflect a type of self-hatred, they can also be a source of pride. One despises the Vatnik, but nevertheless he (and it is always a he, Borenstein notes) can also be seen as embodying something positive. He may be stupid and drunk, but he is at least patriotic. Thus Borenstein quotes the following poem:

I’m guilty before Europe

Because I’m happy beyond measure at Crimea’s return.

I remember the Crimean Spring,

And am not ashamed of my country.

…

I’m a vatnik. So those who destroy our monuments

Don’t recognize me.

…

I’m not ashamed to cry on Victory Day.

I have not forgotten!

I remember!

I am proud!

There is a sort of process of inversion here, in which Russians take the characteristics that Medveded, Shishkin, and those like them despise, and then make them out to be something good. This is particularly well portrayed in Borenstein’s chapter about the Orc. In this, Borenstein makes an interesting argument that Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings is racist. The book features a bunch of “good guys”, who happen to be pale skinned, decidedly Anglo-Saxon, and live in the western part of Middle Earth. And it pits them against a bunch of dark-skinned “bad guys,” who happen to live in the east. Borenstein records that some Russians have interpreted this as being directed against Russia. And indeed, it is true that during the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainians have taken to referring to Russia as “Mordor” and Russians as “Orcs.” And so Russians have inverted it, and in some cases adopted the Orcish label as their own – “Orknash” as Borenstein puts it (echoing the phrase “Krym nash” – Crimea is ours).

Thus, in Russian fan fiction The Lord of the Rings has been portrayed as “Elvish propaganda,” falsely tarnishing the name of Mordor and the Orcs to justify Western Middle Earthish aggression. But as Borenstein points out, taking pride in the Orc is rather different than taking pride in the vatnik or sovok, for the Orc is a lot more violent. Or as Borenstein puts it, “The Orc is the sovok weaponized.”

There is a connection here with my most recent book, about Russian civilizationism. There, I note that liberalism generally rejects civilizationism, and insists on the universal validity of liberal values. Claims to be a distinct civilization are viewed as an excuse used by repressive rulers to justify why they behave contrary to what we consider moral norms of behaviour. But the talk of “Two Russias” and of the Russian masses as paradigms of Homo Sovieticus, and as fundamentally non-European, actually confirms the claims of Russian civilizationists that they are in fact distinct. And this is potentially deeply dangerous. For, if you keep telling Russians that they are an archaic, dark, non-European people, they may turn around and say, “In that case to hell with Europe and everything it stands for.” And if you insist that they are Orcs, and also insist on treating them as such, well, they may decide that Orcs is what they will be.

Strana.UA, 11/29/25 (Translation by Geoffrey Roberts)

The head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, was a key figure in Zelensky’s inner circle, and his resignation will undoubtedly have enormous consequences.

Although Yermak will likely try to maintain his control over the Office of the President by appointing a close associate as the new head of the Office, his resignation ultimately sets in motion Zelensky’s loss of control over the vertical of power.

It turns out that Yermak was actually fired not by his boss (Zelensky), but by the NABU; even before he was charged, the President dismissed his closest associate, following only a search, public outcry, and pressure from opposition politicians. This sends a powerful signal to the entire state apparatus that Zelensky is no longer the “source of power” in the country and cannot guarantee anything even to his closest associates.

Moreover, few believe that Yermak (like Mindych and other figures in high-ranking corruption cases) could have carried out their schemes without the knowledge, consent, or even direct participation of the President.

In other words, a blow to Yermak is automatically a blow to Zelensky, a signal that he too could be accused of corruption at any moment. Especially if lesser figures speak out (and after today’s events, the likelihood of this has increased).

Immediately after the outbreak of the Mindych corruption scandal, Bankova began to lose its levers of political control within the government. Even [Prime Minister] Svyrydenko began to increasingly rely on the opinions of the Servant of the People faction rather than the Office of the Prosecutor General. The SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office also began to sabotage various “political” instructions from the President’s Office.

Now, all these processes will accelerate dramatically. And the only question is how Zelensky will lose his remaining power.

It could be implemented in a softer form, by shifting the centre of decision-making from Bankova to parliament and the government, but maintaining the dominant position of Servant of the People. This project is being promoted by faction leader Arakhamia and several other people in the presidential team who were negatively disposed toward Yermak.

A source close to Arakhamia in the Servant of the People faction described the group’s vision for the future in a comment to Strana: “After Yermak’s resignation, the Rada will stabilise and calm down. There will be no defections from the faction, which have been much discussed in parliamentary corridors. Everyone will remain in their positions. We will pass the budget with dignity and responsibility.”

Zelensky will also lose political control over the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) (Yermak coordinated the political work of these agencies, including against the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU)).

But a far more severe scenario is also possible, in which, through a split in Servant of the People, the parliamentary majority is reformed and comes under the control of the “anti-Zelensky coalition” (Poroshenko and MPs close to grant structures, with the NABU on their side). In this case, a vote of no confidence in the government would be passed, and pressure would be exerted on Zelensky to approve the formation of a new Cabinet of Ministers of “national unity,” effectively independent of the president. Such a scenario would essentially lead to Zelensky’s own imminent departure.

But far more important is the potential impact of these events on the war and on the peace negotiations.

Yermak’s resignation and the resulting upheavals within the government will in any case have a significant impact on the country’s governance during the war: budget adoption, energy, defense procurement, and the mood of the military and society.

Zelensky’s own political prospects would also be largely nullified. First, a corruption scandal involving those closest to him. Now, the resignation of a key figure in the vertical of power. All of this significantly reduces the incumbent president’s chances of winning the election.

This means that ratings are gradually becoming a secondary concern for Zelensky. This could, theoretically, make him more susceptible to American pressure regarding key points of the peace agreement, which he has so far refused to agree to (although much depends on the degree of pressure and the bonuses offered).

This also increases the likelihood of a scenario in which, under increasing pressure to make concessions in the negotiations to end the war, Zelensky may decide to resign altogether, and the final negotiations for signing the agreement will be led by the acting president, the speaker of parliament.

Finally, it cannot be ruled out that the system of power will completely collapse and become unmanageable, leaving no one to negotiate peace terms with. But this could have catastrophic consequences for the military situation, and therefore the Ukrainian elite and the West will try to prevent this.

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 11/26/25

Bloomberg shared what it claimed to be the transcripts of calls between Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov as well as between Ushakov and Putin’s other advisor Kirill Dmitriev about the Ukrainian peace process. The gist of the Witkoff-Ushakov call was Witkoff’s proposal to have Putin suggest a Gaza-like 20-point peace deal for Ukraine during an upcoming call with Trump while the Ushakov-Dmitriev one implied that the leaked draft was Russian-influenced.

Ushakov declined to comment on his talks with Witkoff but said that “Somebody tapped, somebody leaked, but not us” whereas Dmitriev flat-out described his purported call with Ushakov as “fake”. For his part, Trump defended Witkoff’s alleged “coaching” of Ushakov on how Putin should deal with him by reminding everyone “That’s what a dealmaker does. You got to say, ‘Look, they want this – you got to convince them with this.’ That’s a very standard form of negotiations.”

As regards the possibility that the draft framework was Russian-influenced, the notion of which has been pushed by the legacy media to discredit the proposed mutual compromises therein, that was already debunked. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as National Security Advisor, said that “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S. It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

Therefore, neither transcript is scandalous even if their contents were accurately reported, yet the question arises of who might have tapped and leaked these calls. Intriguingly, earlier the same day that Bloomberg later published their report, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned that the UK “aims to undermine Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict by discrediting him.” Readers will recall the UK’s role in Russiagate, which they conspired with the CIA, FBI, and the Clinton camp to cook up to against him.

Seeing as how they can no longer collude in this way with their three prior conspirators, the UK might therefore have resorted to leaking those two calls with Ushakov that they might have tapped (possibly among many others) as a last-ditch attempt to discredit the latest unprecedented progress towards peace. This provocation might also have been meant to make Trump panic and fire Witkoff out of fear of another Russiagate 2.0 investigation if this scandal helps the Democrats flip Congress next year.

Firing Witkoff, who’s been central to the recent progress towards peace, could ruin the process right at its most pivotal moment as Zelensky is reportedly considering meeting with Trump very soon to finalize the details of the US-mediated peace framework with Russia. By holding firm, Trump is therefore obstructing efforts to ruin everything that he’s achieved thus far on a Russian-Ukrainian peace deal and consequently revive the Russiagate hoax for helping the Democrats during next year’s midterms.

Accordingly, Bloomberg’ Russian-US leaks can be considered a British intelligence operation for derailing the peace process and perpetuating the conflict from which the UK profits, not to mention meddling in the midterms by giving a fake news-driven boost to the Democrats. Trump revealed that Witkoff will meet with Putin on Monday and might even be joined by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who helped negotiate the Gaza deal, so more British provocations are expected out of desperation to ruin their talks.