The caricature from the Israeli website Ynetnews.
By Slava Tsukerman and Nina Kerova
Despite all of President Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, Putin seems to show no signs of desire to end the war.
The draft Russian federal budget for 2026–2028 states that Russia plans to spend almost 40% of its budget on the army and police.
It is impossible to find any speculation in the Russian official press about the possible end of the war, but it is also impossible not to notice the material entitled “Russia announces the start of a new phase of the special military operation.”
It was published by Rambler, the most popular Russian Internet aggregator with over 47.7 million monthly visitors.
On October 10, at a press conference following his visit to Tajikistan, Putin said:
“I think that, to be honest, there is currently a certain nuclear arms race going on in the world.” Then Putin added: “I think we will soon have the opportunity to introduce new weapons that we once announced. They are undergoing testing now. The tests are going well.”
Putin noticed that, if the US refuses to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START, START-3), it will not be decisive for Russia. Russia’s nuclear deterrence potential is now higher than anywhere else in the world.
Despite the fact that Russian troops have made little progress on Ukrainian territory in recent months, the Russian media constantly talks about Russian victories and the growth of Russia’s authority around the world. All these successes are attributed to Putin’s exceptional genius. They also present Putin’s policy as the only possible way of saving Russia from catastrophe, otherwise inevitable.
On October 8, 2025, Russian website runews24.ru published the article entitled “American prediction, that Russia should not have existed by 2015, failed. What Putin did to achieve it?” The most popular Russian Internet aggregator Rambler reprinted it.
“According to the American forecast, Russia should not have existed by 2015. The country should have disintegrated into 20-30 “bantustans”. (Wikipedia: ’A Bantustan was a territory that the National Party administration of the Union of South Africa and later the Republic of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa, as a part of its policy of apartheid. The term, first used in the late 1940s, was coined from Bantu and -stan.’)
“All of these ‘bantustans’ would be controlled by Western intelligence services and governments. These ‘Plans’ implied nuclear disarmament of the Russian Federation. After that, Western capitalists would start the main thing: sucking out Russia’s natural resources. From uranium and oil to forests and clean water. To the extinction of the population.
“However, as we can see, all the deadlines have passed, and the American think tank must admit to itself that customized forecasts are clearly a bad thing. No one has canceled the role of personality in history. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin became just the person who was destined to pull the country back from the edge of the abyss…
“Putin became the embodiment of the hopes of a huge country. And he managed to fulfill most of these hopes. Putin turned the pages of the country’s history. (…)
“Putin has managed to become not just a politician, but a strategist of the era. He seriously surpasses many of his Western ‘colleagues’ in his ability to anticipate the situation.
“During the 25 years of Putin’s rule, ordinary Russians have found stability. The country managed not only to survive in the era of the broken world system, but also managed to break into the number of unconditional world leaders. This is why our president is hated by many adversaries in the West.”
Lately one Russian language post became so popular in the Facebook, that it was republished dozens of times by many readers. It was the “open letter” to President Trump, written by the popular Russian writer Eduard Topol, who immigrated to the USA in 1978.
Topol’s post became so popular, because very many anti-Putin Russians share the Topol’s points of view and they eager to make these points of view known to the rest of the Word.
Here are some excerpts from the Topol’s “open letter” to Trump:
“You (President Trump) should know that Putin cannot end the war with Ukraine, even if you give him your Mar-a-Lago villa in Palm Beach, Trump Tower in New York, and a dozen of your golf clubs. And not because he doesn’t want to take a break from the war, but because he can’t. Because he knows Russian history:
“The return of Russian troops from Europe to Russia after the victory over Napoleon led to the anti-tsarist uprising of the “Decembrists” in 1825.
“Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to the 1905 revolution.
“The flight of a million Russian soldiers from the Russian-German front during World War I led to the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and the February Revolution of 1917.
“The return of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989 marked the beginning of the collapse of the USSR.
“Knowing this, Putin cannot end the war with Ukraine and bring his troops home.
“Only the opportunity in May, 1945, to leave almost his entire army in Europe as an occupying force helped Stalin avoid a post-war coup.
“So Putin dreams of occupying Ukraine, as well as the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, etc., to keep his army away from Moscow. He remembers how 525,000 soldiers who returned from Afghanistan in 1989 turned into bandits who terrorized the entire population of the USSR. And he knows what will happen if 1.5 million soldiers who are skilled professionals return home from the Ukrainian front.”
Some Russians would add to the facts, mentioned by Topol, also the fact that practically all the anti-war active Russians were killed, imprisoned or pushed to emigrate by Putin. He is surrounded by extreme warmongers.
Who knows what they’ll do if their President will “betray” them?
