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Trump sexual abuse verdict won't hurt him with GOP
Trump was found liable in lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. Does this hurt his 2024 presidential aspirations? After his Victory Day speech falsely comparing his invasion of Ukraine to the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Putin losing domestic support? How might Imran Khan's arrest affect stability in Pakistan? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Number one, Trump was found liable in lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. Does this hurt his 2024 presidential aspirations?
Found liable for sexual abuse and for defamation, not for rape. A civil case, $5 million he's going to have to pay. That is a horrible, horrible state of affairs for the former president of the United States. It's a stain on the country and it should matter, but it won't. It will be seen by his supporters as yet one more witch hunt, and his immediate response was, "I don't even know the woman," which is obviously untrue, but is a feature of his presidency and of his candidacy. Keep in mind, the people that are voting for him for the nomination are largely people that very strongly support him and very strongly oppose Biden. I suspect that if anything, this is going to have a negligible to slightly positive impact on the way he's likely to perform in the Republican primaries, and that is an insane thing to say.
After his Victory Day speech falsely comparing his invasion of Ukraine to the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Putin losing domestic support?
No. No, not at all. There's a theme with these questions apparently right now. Not at all. Putin domestically has an enormous amount of support. Still, I would say that the war has been internalized as part of national identity in Russia at this point. There are no more significant anti- Russian, anti-war demonstrations in the, a feeling that the Russians are fighting the war against NATO, against the United States, not just against the Ukrainians. Certainly, the war has been extremely poorly fought and managed on the Russian side. The Russian economy has been managed extremely well, and that's a challenging sort of thing to square if you're looking at Russia internationally, but domestically, it means the average Russian still feels okay about where the economy is. At least those that haven't been sent to fight or haven't fled because they're concerned about getting drafted.
Finally, how might Imran Khan's arrest affect stability in Pakistan?
Pretty badly. I mean, look, at the one hand, this is a country that is near default facing massive inflation, huge economic crisis. At the same time, the arrest of the extremely popular former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which was prevented once because all of his supporters stormed around his house and stopped the police and the military from coming in, well, this time around they got him and that is going to lead to mass protests, I'm almost certain, across the entire country in a time that they really can't afford it. So more challenges in Pakistan, sort of an ongoing state of affairs, but worse now than they have been in some time.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a military parade on Victory Day in Moscow.
Putin's "Victory Day" speech
Global elites and neonazis are waging a very unfair war against us. Check. The West seeks to destroy us and our values. Check. Shout out to China for fighting against Japanese imperialism. Huh? Interesting – check.
Vladimir Putin’s speech a few hours ago at Russia’s annual World War II victory celebration was about what you’d expect: Putin, now 14 months into a four-day war against Ukraine, is girding his people for a long-term conflict against the “West,” and hoping China will help.
But the event, Russia’s most elaborate public holiday, was held this year under an unprecedented nationwide clampdown, with dozens of cities canceling parades because of “security concerns.” Even jet skis were banned on St. Petersburg’s canals! All of this just days after Russia claimed it was attacked by two Ukrainian drones it shot down over the Kremlin.
Scaling back Victory Day celebrations is a big deal. Soviet sacrifice and its triumph in WWII are (justifiably) a few of the remaining points of broad national pride for most Russians today. “There’s not much else,” Russia’s leading independent pollster once told us.
So will Tuesday's clampdown raise questions about how the war effort in Ukraine is actually going? Or will it stoke more nationalist anger about the threat that Ukraine/global elites/neonazis supposedly pose?
Beginning of Putin's end
On May 9, Vladimir Putin marked the 77th anniversary of Russia's Victory Day in World War II by co-opting its narrative to justify invading Ukraine and paint itself as a victim of Western aggression.
Russia, it seems, hasn't moved on much since 1945 — and still hangs on to perceived outside threats — like Finland and Sweden joining NATO. But if the West goes too far, there's a much bigger risk: World War III.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to Michael McFaul, who knows a thing or two about Russia and Putin from his days as the former US ambassador in Moscow.
"There is not a single economic actor in Russia that thinks this is good," notes McFaul, who speaks to Russians frequently. "My sense is that this is a pretty catastrophic failure."
McFaul says that Putin signaled in his nothing-burger speech that Russia is ready to gobble up another chunk of Ukraine in the Donbas region, and explains why that gives Ukraine a stronger hand at the negotiating table. Also, he believes that the US needs to change up its sanctions game and keep quiet about sharing intel with the Ukrainians, and debunks the overwhelming support for the war claimed by the Kremlin.
Also on GZERO World: the West thinks this is a fight for democracy itself, but some pretty big democracies beg to differ.
Putin couldn't declare victory in Ukraine - so he changed the "war" objectives
For Michael McFaul, Vladimir Putin's May 9 Victory speech was a "nothing burger."
But there was something in there that signals his intentions in Ukraine, the former US ambassador to Russia tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
McFaul says Putin changed the "phraseology" he's been using for the last two months when referring to the Donbas, where perhaps he now knows he can't prevail.
For the first time, Putin very deliberately talked about the Donbas and other contested parts of Ukraine as being part of Russian territory — and that means Russia will try to annex them.
"That is new. That is something qualitatively different than [...] the way he's been speaking about the war so far."
Putin keeps his war cards close
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey, everybody, Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take to start off your week. It is, of course, May 9th, and that means Victory Day. It's when the Soviets were celebrating their defeat of the Nazis in World War II. The Russians of course, continued that after 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
And today even more important in the context of Russia's invasion into Ukraine, not in any way victorious and Putin, wasn't trying to claim it was, rather, it was all about justifying what he referred to as a preemptive rebuff to NATO aggression. He talked about the Ukrainians as a Nazi regime, that they were trying to get nuclear weapons, that NATO and Ukraine were going to take Crimea back from Russia. All of which was made up from a whole cloth, but nonetheless was the basis of Putin's speech.
Some things he didn't say. First on the negative side, he didn't say that Russia has won, that they've emerged victorious, that the second military operation has been as successful as the first phase of the military operation. And that Ukraine has now been denazified, and the Russians in Donbas who had acts of genocide committed against them have been protected. Again, all would've been fake news, but Putin has control of all state media in the country. And there isn't any other kind at this point. That could have been the basis for a frozen conflict, even negotiations on a ceasefire. That's not where we are at all. That's the negative side.
The positive side, the UK and their general intelligence had come out a week ago and said that there was a plan for an announcement of a general mobilization of Russian troops. Putin did not do that, nor did he announce an escalation of broad war footing against NATO. The propaganda value against NATO continues to be high. The sense that this is a fight that is absolutely necessary for the Russians and that they have to emerge victorious, that is the case. But it's still the actual war goals for the Russians continue to be vague, giving Putin significant flexibility in how he reacts to what happens on the ground, both in Ukraine and more broadly over the course of the coming weeks and months.
So what would I say? I think that it makes me not more positive in any way about the Russia-Ukraine fight, but rather it does give us at least for the next few weeks, a little more clarity on what the parameters of the conflict are likely to be. Right now, Russia's taking about one to two kilometers of land on the ground in Luhansk and Donetsk, around the Donbas. Every day they're losing some territory around Kharkiv, which is just outside, to the northwest of the Donbas.
To the Ukrainians the fact that there is no general mobilization means that Ukraine with better arms and much higher morale, should be able to start counter attacking in the Donbas probably at some point in June. So maybe the Russians can take all of it, but then the Ukrainians are going to bring the fight to them, as they already have surrounding Kyiv and in Kharkiv.
What that means to me, at a minimum, we're talking about fighting primarily in the Donbas over the course of the coming weeks and months with not a lot of understanding of what's going to happen between Russia and NATO as Finland and Sweden join, and as we continue to see escalation in sanctions against the Russians from the G7, from the Europeans, from the United States, and as we see escalation in the military support that's being provided from NATO and aligned countries into Ukraine.
I think one important point that was raised was that Putin described in the Donbas, the Russians as fighting for their own territory. And that makes clear from Putin something that I've certainly been presuming over the course of the past two, three months, which is that the intention is to either fully recognize the expanded Donbas as independent, or to formally annex. All of which baseline are unacceptable for the Ukrainians. So making very clear that a very significant piece of Ukrainian territory is going to be permanently occupied from the perspective of the Russians. That is what Putin's goal continues to be, irrespective of how badly his troops are fighting on the ground.
Then over the course of the last few days, the fact that you've had intensified bombings and artillery and missiles against Odesa, as well as other cities across Ukraine, that is punishment of the Ukrainians for having the temerity to continue to fight against Russia, and potentially it shows that there are broader territorial goals that the Russians will have in the medium to long term. Odesa someplace I'm particularly focused on. Transnistria, which is this Moldovan breakaway province, mostly populated by ethnic Russians, which itself has declared independence from Moldova. If they were to formally break away with Russian troops and support, you would then have an encirclement of Odesa, which is Ukraine's largest port. And I absolutely think that is a significant strategic aim for Putin at this phase in the conflict, as he's thinking longer term. But again, what's so interesting about this speech is he continues to not show any cards that he doesn't feel are necessary. He wants to give himself maximum flexibility to act in an environment where things have not gone the way he has planned so far.
Beyond that, I would say that another very important point is that we continue to see all sorts of civilians getting killed. Over this weekend, a school in the Donbas that was bombed and with a lot of civilians that were using it as a place of refuge, looks like some 60 civilians have been killed as a consequence of that bombing. Obviously, not a target of any strategic value, military value to the Russians. And again, all of that is going to lead to more calls of war crimes, and a hardening of positions on the part of not just the Ukrainians, but NATO allies. The more information that comes across like this with extraordinary saturation coverage from the West, the more you're going to continue to see these countries leaning into their fight against Russia.
Final thing I would mention is that Russia is of course, fighting Ukraine and NATO here, but it's not that they're fighting NATO in a coordinated fashion. Increasingly, you have a whole bunch of NATO countries that have different goals in terms of what they're trying to accomplish in the war. All the NATO countries agree that what Russia has done in Ukraine is beyond the pale, and they should be punished, and that Ukraine should be supported. Those are table stakes. But beyond that, are you trying to destroy Russian military capability? Do you want to remove Russian troops from all of Ukraine? Does that include Crimea? Do you want undermine Putin personally? Do you want to take out Russia's generals? It really depends on who you listen to. And frankly, there are a number of governments that are coming across in some ways as more intransigent and hardliner, even what you're now hearing from the Ukrainian government itself. And that is precisely because the domestic politics in many of these countries is moving towards piling on against Russia.
When that happens, you have a lot of individual political leaders that are acting in a political entrepreneurial way, and they're paying attention to their domestic politics. They aren't necessarily coordinated in every policy. That's a problem. It makes accidents easier, and it also makes it harder to have an effective strategic policy as one NATO. I don't think it makes it easier for Russia to divide and conquer because there is so much anger and animosity from NATO, and because the Russians have already been cut off so much diplomatically, culturally, economically, and that's not going to change from NATO. But I do think that it means that the conflict is harder to resolve, and it means the potential for escalation, unintended escalation continues to grow.
So a meaningful speech by Putin. It doesn't radically change the way we think about the conflict, but does certainly create a little more specificity in latest understanding of where Putin is and unfortunately, latest understanding of where this war is going.
That's it for me. Hope everyone's doing well and I'll talk to you all real soon.
For more of Ian Bremmer's weekly analyses, subscribe to his GZERO World newsletter at ianbremmer.bulletin.comSri Lankan protesters demanding the president's resignation clash with police in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
What We're Watching: Sri Lanka's political turmoil, Putin's low-key Victory Day speech, drug cartel riots in Colombia
One Rajapaksa resigns in Sri Lanka
Following months of protests over government mismanagement and the country’s economic collapse, Sri Lanka’s embattled Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced his resignation. Violent clashes broke out in the capital city, Colombo, on Monday between anti-government protesters and supporters of the Rajapaksa regime, which is headed by the PM’s brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. At least 150 people were taken to hospital after authorities used heavy-handed tactics to try to disperse the demonstrators. This political shake-up comes amid unrest over soaring fuel and food prices and constant blackouts. Sri Lanka’s foreign currency reserves have entirely dried up, prompting Colombo to print more money, which further pushed prices up and the currency value down. The Rajapaksa brothers had overseen the country’s warming ties with China in recent years, which has seen Sri Lanka become embroiled in a relentless debt trap set out by Beijing. Until now, Mahinda Rajapaksa had refused to step down. We're watching to see if protesters go home, or if they continue demanding the ouster of his brother.
Putin’s “nothing to declare” message
Monday’s big news from Russia’s war on Ukraine is that Vladimir Putin delivered a Victory Day speech with no big news in it. This “nothing to declare” speech could be revealing about Putin’s own uncertainty about where the war is headed. His refusal to declare an escalation of the fighting acknowledges a few basic realities. One, the emerging stalemate in Ukraine leaves the Kremlin much less confident than at the beginning of the war about what can be achieved, and Putin doesn’t want to offer specific goals that Russia might not reach. Two, Putin’s “best friend,” Chinese President Xi Jinping, isn’t on board with a larger war. Chinese State TV reported on Monday that Xi has told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that “all efforts must be made to avoid an intensification and expansion of the conflict, leading to an unmanageable situation.” COVID and a slowing economy give Xi enough headaches at home without a wider war pitting Russia against the West to make things more complicated. Third, Putin knows that escalation in Ukraine means a lot more Russian men drafted into the army – and that any such announcement would test the limits of domestic support for his war.
Drug cartel riots rock Colombia
Last week, Colombia extradited a notorious narco kingpin known as “Otoniel” to the United States to face trial. By the weekend, supporters of his fearsome Clan del Golfo cartel had run amok in several regions of northern Colombia, blocking roads, imposing lockdowns, and torching cars in a wave of violence that drew in the military and left at least half a dozen people dead. Analysts say the power of groups like the Clan del Golfo stems partly from the government’s failure to bring economic opportunity to vast swathes of the country relinquished by the FARC guerrilla group after a historic 2016 peace accord. For now, Otoniel’s goons have stood down, but the violence — some of the worst upheaval since nationwide protests over a tax reform in 2021 — has already filtered into the country’s ultra-polarized presidential campaign. Leftwinger Gustavo Petro, who leads the polls, blasted the government’s failed security policies and accused powerful rightwing former President Alvaro Uribe of fomenting the armed groups that later became the Clan del Golfo. Meanwhile, Fico Gutierrez, a rightwinger polling a distant second, called on Colombians to condemn the violence and pledged to strengthen extradition mechanisms to ensure justice for men like Otoniel and reparations for their victims. Colombians vote in the election’s first round on May 29.
Vladimir Putin watches a military parade on Victory Day in Moscow.
Putin declares ... nothing
In the end, Russian President Vladimir Putin threw the experts for a loop again.
In his Victory Day speech in Moscow a few hours ago, he didn’t formally declare war on Ukraine, announce a general mobilization, or claim even a partial victory in the conflict. In fact, he didn’t utter the word “Ukraine” a single time.
Rather, he framed the conflict as a justified Russian response not only to a threat posed by the “neo-Nazis” in Kyiv and their NATO backers, but also to 30 years of broader mistreatment at the hands of a decadent and hostile West.
In perhaps the only real clue about Moscow’s intentions, he called the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine “our land” but didn’t mention any other mainland parts of the country.
In the end, this was a cautious speech, one meant to bolster Russian popular support for continued action in Ukraine, but without raising the stakes too high, too soon, for the Russian public.
Putin can still declare a general mobilization or an official "war" any time he likes, but he appears to see such a move — which would instantly expose a much broader swathe of the population directly to the war — as unwise or unnecessary for the moment.
The counter-programming from Kyiv
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released his own Victory Day speech — a slickly produced video address in which he celebrates Ukraine’s own role in the defeat of Hitler and lists a number of cities that were liberated from Nazi occupation 77 years ago. They are all cities occupied by Russian troops today. ”On victory day,” he said, “we are fighting for a new victory.”Victory Day in Russia?
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, speculation has grown about how Vladimir Putin will use the May 9 Victory Day celebration, which commemorates the Soviet triumph over Nazi invaders in 1945. Each year, Russia’s president makes a speech to mark the occasion. For obvious reasons, this year’s address will be analyzed line by line across Russia and around the world.
Will Putin declare “victory” in Ukraine? That won’t be an easy sell. Fierce, skillful Ukrainian resistance and Russia’s surprising military ineptitude forced an early retreat from attempts to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Instead, Moscow’s military planners are now focused on extending Russian control over the Donbas region and capturing the territory between Donbas and Russian-controlled Crimea.
If his army can finally subdue the remaining resistance in the strategically vital city of Mariupol, Putin can claim the defeat of the so-called Azov Battalion, Ukrainian fighters with reported links to far-right nationalists. That would fit with Putin’s stated goal of a “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. With Mariupol, he could also claim Russia has seized a port that’s crucial to Ukraine’s economy. There are even signals that Russian soldiers will mark Victory Day in Mariupol itself, if possible, and maybe in other captured parts of Ukraine, as well. Putin may also declare one or more “people’s republics” in captured Ukrainian territory, as Russia has done in the Donbas, or even annex some land, as it did in Crimea.
These are real advances, but in a week when Europe has announced plans to end imports of Russian oil, powerful weapons from NATO countries reached Ukrainian fighters, and anticipation grew that Finland and Sweden will soon join the alliance, doubling the length of the Russia-NATO border, Moscow’s current gains fall well short of “victory.”
Will Putin declare war? Putin still calls his Ukraine invasion a “special military operation” rather than a “war,” in part to reassure Russians that the dangers of blowback in Ukraine and from the West are low. But after 10 weeks of destruction, thousands of lost troops, historically harsh sanctions, and continuing Western support for Ukraine, Putin may need to prepare Russians for a longer and costlier campaign by explicitly declaring war.
Ukrainian officials, Britain’s defense minister, and others have predicted Putin will announce some form of mass mobilization on Monday. Putin has so far promised that Russia will send only professional soldiers, not draftees, into Ukraine. But given the slow progress of Russia’s campaign – and even the risk of defeat – he may decide he needs a lot more troops. A Kremlin spokesman has called this idea “nonsense,” but before the war Putin’s government dismissed American warnings of impending invasion as “Western hysteria.”
The large-scale conscription of Russian young men would sharply raise the stakes for Putin inside Russia as potential draftees and their families come face-to-face with realities of war that don’t appear in Russia’s state-dominated media.
It’s also possible that, to justify a larger mobilization of Russian forces, Putin will issue a kind of declaration of war against NATO. That need not mean World War III, but it could signal an intensified Russian effort to punish Ukraine’s Western backers with economic pressure, cyber harassment, and other forms of more direct confrontation.
More broadly, the speech offers Putin a fresh chance to explain what Russia wants to accomplish in Ukraine, and why. His primary audience remains the Russian public, but foreign governments will scan this speech line by line in hopes of answering three more questions:
- Have the past 10 weeks of war changed Putin’s opinion about what exactly he wants in Ukraine and what he’s willing to do to get it?
- Does any apparent shift in strategy change the risks facing Ukraine and NATO?
- Does a possible redefinition of victory create new opportunities to end the fighting?
Whatever message Putin chooses, May 9 will give us Moscow’s most carefully scrutinized Red Square speech in a very long time.