It was assessed in late April that “France’s Planned Nuclear Drills With Poland Just Made It Russia’s Top Adversary In Europe” due to the expansion of its nuclear umbrella eastward and Russia’s expectation that this might embolden Polish aggression against Kaliningrad and/or Belarus at the risk of World War III. That analysis still stands for the aforesaid objective reason stemming from just how much this move threatens Russia’s national security interests. Since then, however, a new trend has become undeniable.
Former President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev set it into motion with his incredibly detailed article about Germany’s remilitarization, which was analyzed here, the takeaway being that Russia perceives a growing German-led 1941-like threat on its borders. That was followed by new Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) President Dmitri Trenin telling RT on Victory Day that “Europe is Russia’s principal adversary”, which was a summary of his recent article here.
One day later, RT translated and republished the article by Valdai Club’s research director Fyodor Lukyanov that they titled “Deutschland über alles? The world is not ready for German rearmament”. Interestingly, it was originally published by the popular state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper on 4 May, the same day as Trenin’s abovementioned article was published at his think tank. All three – Medvedev, Trenin, and Lukyanov – are influential thought leaders and narrative trendsetters in Russia.
Trenin and Lukyanov, as RIAC’s president and Valdai’s research director, also likely brief policymakers and decisionmakers due to being two of their country’s top experts. They might thus personally know Medvedev or at least are sometimes informed by his colleagues on the Security Council or their deputies about whatever upcoming narrative trends he helped get approved. It might therefore not be a coincidence that all three are now portraying Germany as Russia’s perceived top adversary.
This undeniable trend preceded Putin telling the media on Victory Day that “I think the matter is heading towards the completion of the Ukrainian conflict.” This, too, might have been decided in advance (perhaps at one of last month’s three Security Council meetings). If it’s indeed the case that Putin informed them that he’d say that after Victory Day, which can only be speculated, then it’s reasonable that they decided to portray Germany and the EU as a whole as Russia’s perceived top adversary.
Accordingly, this trend that was first introduced into the domestic discourse by Trenin and Lukyanov before being globally amplified by Medvedev’s article at RT could signal that Russia might be closer to a deal with the US over Ukraine than thought, ergo the need to replace its perceived top adversary. Electoral imperatives in both Russia and the US, as explained near the end of this analysis here, could account for why one or both of them might compromise on sensitive issues that they never expected to.
If this hypothesis is correct, and it’s compellingly based upon the empirical evidence of three leading Russian narrative trendsetters portraying Germany and the EU as a whole as Russia’s perceived top adversary instead of the US like before, then more forthcoming examples of this should be expected. To be clear, this is just reasonable conjecture centered on the undeniable trend that unfolded around Victory Day and Putin’s announcement after the parade, but it might all just be a curious coincidence.
