Laura Loomer’s trip to Ukraine and interview with Zelensky were the culmination of a trend over the last 18 months of MAGA souring on Russia and warming up to Ukraine. While she might have been driven to a degree by personal motives vis-à-vis her rivalries with Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, her reversal from a staunch critic of Ukraine to a fierce supporter parallels Trump “escalating to de-escalate” with Russia through a new Ukrainian-fronted “war of attrition”. Something far greater is therefore going on.
It was assessed here that “Average members of the movement have come to believe that Putin and those around him support everything that they oppose such as Leftism, Islamism, Iran, and the ‘MAGA dissidents’” for the reasons that were explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis. This perception, however, is objectively false. While Russia and the US don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, Russia isn’t the US’ irreconcilable adversary and potentially even a latent enemy like it’s now being presented as.
The present piece will therefore quickly clarify Russia’s policies on issues of importance to MAGA. The purpose isn’t to convince average members of the movement to support Russia’s policies, just to inform them of what they are and contextualize why they might be at odds with the US’ in some cases. The base as a whole probably won’t rebalance their views on Russia, nor will this likely get Trump to reverse his recent escalatory moves, but it’s still useful for everyone to be aware of the facts in any case:
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China
Russia and China are strategic partners but crucially not mutual defense allies. They both envisage a future world order where non-Western countries have a greater say, thus explaining their joint opposition to US policies that seek to prevent this. Nevertheless, they’re not entirely on the same page either, since Russia arms India against China as part of its regional balancing act while China informally complies with some Western sanctions against Russia and sells drones, parts, and fiber optics to Ukraine.
Iran
Like China, Iran is also Russia’s strategic partner, but it doesn’t have a mutual defense alliance with it either. In fact, Russia agreed to a military coordination deal with Israel in the run-up to its Syrian Operation from 2015-2024, which allowed Israel to bomb the IRGC, Hezbollah, the Syrian Arab Army, and allied militias without interference from Russia as part of its other regional balancing act. Russia has sold arms to Iran before, which were solely for deterrence purposes, but not during ongoing hostilities.
Israel
Russia and Israel remain close despite occasionally harsh rhetoric about one another. As proof of this, Israel isn’t even symbolically designated as an officially “unfriendly” state by Russia, which is due to Israel refusing to comply with the West’s anti-Russian sanctions. Putin himself is also a proud lifelong philo-Semite as proven by this collection of quotes between 2000-2018 from the official Kremlin website. He’s also previously described Russians and Israelis as a “true common family” due to their diaspora ties.
Hamas/Palestine
Russia officially regards Hamas’ infamous attack on October 7th, 2023, to be an act of terror, but it still retains ties with the group’s political wing. Russia also supports the creation of an independent Palestinian State in line with the 1967 borders per relevant UNSC resolutions. These policies are actually commonplace across the world. Relative to others’, Israel favors Russia’s approach, so much so that former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised Putin in 2021 as “a true friend of the State of Israel”.
The Gulf
The UAE is Russia’s top trade partner in the region and is widely considered to provide Russia with an irreplaceable valve from Western sanctions pressure as regards its role in facilitating foreign transactions. Russia also enjoys close ties with Saudi Arabia, with whom it coordinates global oil prices through OPEC+, and all the other monarchies. This contextualizes why Russia won’t arm Iran during ongoing hostilities since it doesn’t want its weapons to be used against them at the expense of their close ties.
Ukraine
The “Spirit of Anchorage” would have reportedly seen Putin agree to a ceasefire, which he earlier said he wouldn’t do without Ukraine’s withdrawal from the entirety of the disputed regions, if Trump coerced Zelensky into withdrawing just from Donbass. If true, then that would be a major compromise for peace, yet Trump reneged on his informal commitment for whatever reason. Significantly, Putin also recently rebuffed his hawks who want him to strike Ukraine’s logistics in NATO, thus avoiding World War III.
The EU/NATO
Russia believes that the EU manipulated Trump into reneging on the “Spirit of Anchorage” in collusion with Ukraine. It doesn’t want to attack the bloc, let alone occupy its hostile population, with its only goals being to remove the sanctions to restore energy ties and reform the continental security architecture to reduce the risk of World War III between NATO and Russia. Russia doesn’t seek to impose its political system, values, or anything else onto the EU, unlike what the EU seeks to do to Russia.
North Korea
Rounding out the geopolitical part of this review, Russia and North Korea reaffirmed their decades-old mutual defense alliance in 2024, which then saw North Korean troops help expel Ukraine from Russia’s Kursk Region. While some have fearmongered that this pact could threaten the US or its regional allies, North Korea already threatens them (Pyongyang claims that its capabilities are for deterrence purposes). If anything, this pact helps reduce North Korea’s dependence on China, which aligns with US interests.
Natural Resources
Russia sincerely expected that the US’ compliance with the “Spirit of Anchorage” would result in a resource-centric strategic partnership between them that was elaborated on here and here. In short, the US would reduce Russia’s dependence on China through these means while depriving China of access to every Russian resource deposit (energy and minerals) in which the US and other its close partners like India, Japan, and South Korea invest. This arrangement is still hypothetically on the table.
Leftism
Putin is a critic of communism and Stalin’s “Great Terror”, though he recognizes the latter’s role in leading the USSR to victory against the Nazis in the existential conflict known as the Great Patriotic War. While Russia recently assembled a modern-day Comintern known as the “Sovintern”, it’s also assembled right-wing movements too as explained here, thus balancing everything out. Many top “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” promoted by state media are Leftists, but that’s by coincidence, not design.
Islamism
Russia doesn’t care how states organize their socio-political systems. As regards the international Muslim community, or Ummah, it conceptualizes this collection of countries as a counterweight (together with India) for reducing disproportionate dependence on China. At home, Chechnya is allowed to implement Islamic law (Sharia) per the terms that ended its terrorist-separatist conflict, but Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code strictly criminalizes inciting ethno-religious hatred like some Western Islamists do.
“Third Worldism”
This concept has different definitions, but as regards the critical view of it as a crusade by non-Westerners to destroy the West in revenge for colonialism, etc., Russia in no way supports that. If anything, strengthening these states’ sovereignty by enhancing their security and building power plants stabilizes them, thus reducing illegal immigration to the EU. France has lost some of its extractive enterprises in the Sahel due to Russia, but this blow isn’t fatal and doesn’t harm other Western states.
“MAGA Dissidents”
Russian media’s occasional positive reporting of “MAGA dissidents” and occasional negative reporting of their foes like Loomer, especially on X, is just an attempt to keep their American readers’ attention and generate online traction. As misguided as many MAGA members might consider it to be, not to mention how counterproductive it might have ultimately been vis-à-vis MAGA, that’s their true motive. Moreover, Carlson, Owens, and company were invited to Russia since they’re not antagonistic to it, nothing deeper.
Conservatism
Putin’s Russia is conservative relative to the EU and the Democrats’ vision of the US, but relative to what MAGA wants, it’s only partially conservative but still better than the EU as a whole. There’s no pressure to suppress one’s religious beliefs in public either so long as they don’t infringe on others’ rights. While abortion is legal, the state discourses it and instead promotes pro-natalism. Legal immigration is sought, but the state expects assimilation, though ethnic autonomous republics have special cultural rights.
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Many MAGA members might be surprised to read about Russia’s actual policy towards these over one dozen issues of importance to their movement, but that’s probably because they were under the influence of the Russian soft power approach that I call “Potemkinism”. In brief, it’s the creation of alternative realities about Russian policy for “strategic purposes”, or cynically getting people to like Russia even on false premises such as the debunked belief that Putin is an anti-Zionist who hates Israel.
Despite being counterproductive as explained here by creating false expectations of Russia that lead to disappointment among its supporters, not to mention how it’s backfired by turning MAGA against Russia due to the false perception that Russia supports all that they oppose, it’s still practiced. Be that as it may, I’m humbly a credentialed expert on Russian foreign policy after receiving my MA in International Relations and PhD in Political Science from the Russian MFA-run MGIMO, so I know what its policies are.
As a proud member of MAGA (with certain policy differences) since Trump came down the escalator and an equally proud “Non-Russian Pro-Russian”, I feel a special obligation to clarify the facts about Russian policy for fellow MAGA in order to dispel newly false perceptions of it and the country in general. I’m also a principled opponent of “Potemkinism” and have been “canceled” by top “Non-Russian Pro-Russian” influencers because of it like I discussed here and here. This is therefore very personal for me.
