"It seems to me that America, under Trump's leadership, is reorienting itself geostrategically and taking the side of Russia. It is abandoning not only Ukraine, it is abandoning Europe and has obviously decided that Russia is its right partner. So Ukraine's war will not be only against Russia, but also against America.
This was stated to the Bulgarian National Radio by Vladimir Yonchev, editor-in-chief of OFFNews.
"And what comes next, in my opinion, is that these two very similar types - Putin and Trump - will quarrel. This is very similar to the situation in which Hitler and Stalin, through their foreign ministers Molotov and Ribbentrop, divided Poland. So at the moment it seems that Trump and Putin want to divide Ukraine. The finale will be that they will fight each other and something really scary will happen."
The USA and the world
"There will be a cooling off on all fronts, a trade war, an economic war, the American stock markets will collapse. Now there is one peculiarity that the Americans can print money if they export it abroad, then this inflation is exported abroad. Thanks to his policy, with which he is trying to return production to the USA and make Americans buy American goods, Trump has caused a collapse of trade chains and, more importantly, a collapse of authority, and this will lead to a collapse of the stock markets. At some point, when all these rich people with whom he has surrounded himself begin to lose because of Europe's tough response, he will be forced to change his policy. And this policy will be a central clash with Russia, but now without allies and without trust. The greatest damage Trump has done is that he has destroyed trust."
Who is Trump punishing
"Right now he is only punishing his friends until he loses them. There will come a time when he will have to deal with his enemies. The outcome will be very difficult. This militarization of Europe is not for the good, although it is inevitable and I support it. But I support it because it is inevitable, not because it is for something good. We know the bad things it brings in its wake, but Europe must do it in order to preserve itself. I do not see any ray of light in the outcome of the war. My prediction is that very, very soon, in a matter of months, at least two more conflicts will flare up, and maybe more.
For me, the most likely next victim will be Estonia, according to French President Macron, the most likely next victim will be Moldova and Romania, and the other conflict, which according to the Italians is most likely, is in the former Yugoslavia. Russia does not have the opportunity to attack both Moldova and the Baltic states at the same time, but at least two of these conflicts will break out in the very foreseeable future. And the Yugoslav conflict is inevitable. Several illegitimate factors will announce that Republika Srpska and Kosovo are joining Serbia, Vucic will not say anything for a while, there will still be some trouble, you remember how the Bosnian War broke out from a wedding where the newlyweds were killed, and from there on it was a boiling cauldron."
All barriers have fallen
"The whole world is changing because of the great change in the USA. Until now, we have lived in a rather unipolar world, in which we were used to America receiving a number of benefits in exchange for guaranteeing the security of the entire world order. America has given up this role. Why is it giving up, whether this is the result of Trump's madness or the result of some deep analysis of a large community behind him, I cannot say, but America is entering a situation in which it itself wants the world order to be revised.
America has made many mistakes in history and in the 20th century. Let's remember the beginning of World War II, when America did not want to enter the war until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Until then, there were rallies in America, where posters were carried: "Hitler is not America's enemy", "Do not send weapons to Hitler", etc. What about the war in Kosovo or Afghanistan or Vietnam. And since American policy has always been about whether to intervene anywhere in the world or to be more isolated, this is not the first time that it wants to develop in its own way. This way, when tried, turned out to be impossible and led to even greater involvement of America. I have no doubt that Trump and Putin will quarrel soon, but before they quarrel, they will start a few wars together."
Russia's Directions
"In Russia's thinking, two cities play an exceptional role - Moscow and St. Petersburg. This is the basis of Russia in the thinking of their elites. If you look at the map, St. Petersburg is currently completely isolated. If they decide to move an army or warships from there, they have to go hundreds of kilometers into a zone that is surrounded by NATO on all sides. Remember what the Russo-Finnish War broke out for - precisely because of Stalin's desire to better protect St. Petersburg. I expect an attack on Estonia very soon.
The next problem point is Königsberg, the city where Kant was born, which after the end of World War II turned out to be Russian and was renamed Kaliningrad. The Russians now have no access to this city because it is surrounded by NATO territories. Lithuania divides Belarus from Königsberg and I am sure that the Russians will do everything possible to take Lithuania as well. To do so, however, they need to involve Poland in the war, but Poland is a great power, and that is why I think this will not be their first step. At the same time, they need the Balkans to engage a huge part of the European effort."
Is Russia exhausted from the war in Ukraine
"I am not convinced that Russia is exhausted. It has gone completely on military rails. We know from Chekhov that a pistol in the first act necessarily thunders in the second act. They have invested so much money in their army and have the army ready, and an army that has once been deployed cannot be left unused. You cannot deploy the army for battle and tell it that there will be no battle today. So Russia will use the economy on military rails. Precisely because Russia will not be able to drive on these military rails for long anyway, I think that war will be very soon. Because in a year or a year and a half, Russia will really be exhausted. Probably, part of the Ukrainian successes on the front are due to the fact that the Russians are withdrawing some part of their forces from Ukraine and relocating to the Northwest, i.e. in the region of the Baltic republics."
Europe
"Europe is currently much larger than we are used to seeing and thinking about it. Currently, Great Britain has returned to this European space, Canada has joined it, Australia, which said that it is ready to send an army to Ukraine at any moment, and Turkey has also joined. At the meeting where the new NATO was being forged, Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, was present. Money has never been a problem for Europe. Europe is richer than America or China. It's just that all the money that Europeans have has so far been spent on consumption, on our paradise life. Europe has more weapons than the US and Russia, but these weapons are scattered across different countries and 70% of them are American. We used to buy them for some fabulous sum and that was our tax on America."
The big change is different
"The biggest difference between Europe and the rest of the world is that we accept death as something exceptional and fatal and very scary. We do everything we can to stay alive and live in a comfortable world. And we think that it is like that everywhere in the world. But it is not. There are many societies, for example the Russian one, that accept death as something natural. They send 100,000 soldiers there to die, no matter how young they are. And here we want young people to learn, to be successful, to develop, and not to send them to die. This is the big change that we will undergo, and it is for the worse, it will make our lives worse, but we are obviously being squeezed. In the coming years, many Europeans will die. And this sounds very scandalous and bad at the moment, but there is no way. It seems that this is the future world in which we will live, it sounds scary and disgusting, but, that is it.
There is some chance that some healthy forces in the US will wake up, that the policy will be changed, but at the moment it seems to me that the trend is not like that. This could change in a week, but for me the trends synchronously lead to something else – and it is very scary."
What Trump and Putin want
"Ukraine is a big country, but compared to Europe it is small. What Trump is currently aiming for is to look for Putin as an ally against Europe. What Trump wants is to give Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, to Putin, and leave for himself a weak Western Europe that the Americans can suck up. Because Western Europe cannot do without Eastern Europe, if we talk about the army, about human resources, about soldiers, they will mostly come from Eastern Europe. We are currently witnessing a new Iron Curtain. Trump and Putin want to divide Europe, with Trump wanting the better piece, the richer one - Western Europe. And Putin agrees to such wretches as Bulgaria."
The Bulgarian position
"Historically, Bulgaria is divided and is right on the edge between three very large geopolitical zones of influence. One is the Russian, the Soviet, and the current Putin empire, the other is Europe, and the third is Turkey. Always and at all times, each of these policies has had its fans. If you go back historically, the European one has always won, but it wins extremely hard and the end result is not always good. Only once, on September 9, have we been attached to the Russian sphere of influence. I have no doubt that there are quite a few people in our country who would be happy to become a Russian province.
As for the president's words about "peace", they have great value. He could have entered politics much earlier, but he didn't. Because he sees his historical role - it will be to govern Bulgaria when Russia has won and we are part of the "Russian peace". He is preparing and pushing towards that. His firm conviction is that Russia will win, and he will be the local derebei here, who will work with Russia and govern Bulgaria. Something I am also sure of, however, is that a huge part of Bulgarian society still hopes that Europe will win and we will remain part of this prosperous world, in which we live incomparably better than we lived during the "Iron Curtain".