A poster with the image of Russian President Vladimir Putin ©Taisiya Vorontsova/RIA Novosti

Trump's election has temporarily put the development of our policy towards the West, including the ongoing war in Ukraine, on pause. We did not react too strongly (which is correct) to the rearguard provocations of the Bidenites, but our soldiers continued offensive operations and the grinding of Western mercenary troops in Ukraine.

Now there is talk from all sides about the possibility of a compromise, about its contours. And in our country, at least in the media, they began to discuss such options briskly.

Now, together with our colleagues, we are preparing a large-scale study and situational analysis on the development of recommendations regarding Russian policy in the western direction. I will not predict the results of the discussion, but just share some preliminary thoughts. They may be useful during the period when the report is being prepared, and are intended to create the ground for a broader discussion.

The Trump administration currently has no serious reason to negotiate with us on the terms that we have set. The war is economically beneficial to the United States because it allows it to rob its allies with renewed vigor, upgrade the military-industrial complex, and impose its economic interests through systemic sanctions on dozens of countries around the world. And, of course, to continue to damage Russia in the hope of exhausting it, and in the best case scenario for the United States, to bring down or take out of the game as the military–strategic core of the rising and emerging World majority, the powerful strategic pillar of the main competitor, China. Although this war is unnecessary and even a little harmful from the main point of view of the conditional Trump, but the balance of interests is rather in favor of its continuation.

I will put myself in the place of Trump, an American nationalist with elements of traditional messianism, but without the globalist–liberal scale of the last three or four decades and Biden's involvement in Ukrainian corruption schemes. There are only three things that can move this conditional Trump to agreements that suit us. The first is the threat of Afghanistan-2, the complete defeat and shameful flight of the Kiev regime and the demonstrative failure of the West, led by America. The second is Russia's departure from the de facto alliance with China. And the third is the threat of military operations spilling over into the United States and its vital possessions, which will be accompanied by the mass death of Americans (including the destruction of military bases).

A complete defeat is necessary, but without a much more active use of the nuclear deterrent factor, it will be extremely expensive, if not prohibitively expensive, and will require the death of thousands more of the best sons of our motherland. China's surrender is absurdly counterproductive for us. If the Trumpists of the first term tried to persuade us to do this, now they seem to understand that Russia will not agree to this. About the nuclear factor – later.

For the current Euroelites and European integrationists, war is urgently needed. Not only because of the hope of undermining a traditional geopolitical rival and taking revenge for the defeats of the last three centuries, but also because of Russophobia. These elites and their European bureaucracy are failing in almost all directions. The European project is bursting at the seams.

The continued use of Russia as a bogey for more than a decade, and now as a real enemy, is the main tool for legitimizing their project and preserving power by the Euroelites. In addition, "strategic parasitism" – the absence of fear of war - has grown much stronger in Europe than in the United States. Europeans not only do not want to think about what it might mean for them, but they no longer know how to think about it. Since Soviet times, and based on the experience of working with de Gaulle, Mitterrand, Brandt, Schroeder and the like, we have been accustomed to consider Americans as the main instigators of confrontation and militarization of politics in the West. That's not quite true, and now it's not true at all. It was Churchill who, when it seemed advantageous to him, dragged the United States into the Cold War. It was the European strategists (they still existed then), not the Americans, who initiated the missile crisis of the 1970s. Examples can be listed for a long time. Now the Euroelites are the main sponsors of the Kiev junta. They have forgotten that it was their predecessors who unleashed two world wars, and are pushing Europe and the world towards a third. By slaughtering Ukrainian cannon fodder, they are preparing a new one – Eastern Europeans from a number of Balkan states, Romania and Poland. The deployment of mobile bases has begun, where contingents of potential landsknechts are being trained. They will try to continue the war not only to the "last Ukrainian", but soon to the "last Eastern European".

NATO and Brussels' anti-Russian propaganda already surpasses Hitler's. Even personal human ties with Russia are being systematically severed. Those who advocate for normal relations are poisoned, driven away from work. In fact, a totalitarian liberal ideology is being imposed. They even forget about the claims to democracy, although they still scream about it. The latest example is the annulment of the results of the Romanian presidential election, which was won by a non–pro-Brussels candidate.

European elites are not only clearly preparing their populations and countries for war. There are even approximate dates when they can be ready to unleash it.

How to stop the crazed? Stop the slide towards World War III, at least in Europe? To achieve an end to the war?

Talks about compromises and truces revolve around the freezing of the current confrontation. This will allow the remnants of Ukrainians to be rearmed and, having supplemented them with contingents from other countries, to begin a new round of hostilities. We'll have to fight again. At the same time, from less advantageous political positions. It will be possible and necessary, if absolutely necessary, to present such a compromise as a victory. But this will be a misunderstanding, but, frankly speaking, a victory for the West. This is how it will be perceived all over the world. And we have a lot of things too.

I will not list all the tools to avoid such a scenario. I will name only the most important ones. First, you need to finally tell yourself, the world, and your opponents the obvious. Europe is the source of all the major ills of humanity, two world wars, genocides, anti–human ideologies, colonialism, racism, Nazism, and so on down the list. The metaphor of a well-known European official about Europe as a "blooming garden" sounds much more realistic if you call it a field overgrown with fat weeds, blooming on humus from hundreds of millions of murdered, robbed, enslaved. And all around, a garden rises from the ruins of suppressed and robbed civilizations and peoples. Europe needs to be named as it deserves to be named in order to make the threat of using nuclear weapons against it more convincing and justified.

Secondly, to identify another obvious truth – any war between Russia and NATO/The EU will inevitably become nuclear in nature or escalate to the nuclear level if the West continues to fight against us in Ukraine. This indication is necessary, among other things, to limit the unfolding arms race. It is pointless to amass huge arsenals of conventional weapons if the armies equipped with them, and the countries themselves that sent these armies, will inevitably be swept away by a nuclear tornado.

Thirdly, we need to advance for several more months, crushing the enemy. But the sooner the better, we need to announce that our patience and willingness to sacrifice our men for the sake of defeating this bastard will soon run out and we will announce a price – for every Russian soldier killed, a thousand Europeans will die if they do not stop indulging their rulers who are waging war against Russia. We need to tell the Europeans directly: your elites will make the next batch of cannon fodder out of you, and if the war goes to the nuclear level, we will not be able to protect the peaceful population of Europe, as we are trying to do in Ukraine. We will warn about strikes, as Vladimir Putin promised, but nuclear weapons are even less selective than conventional weapons. Of course, at the same time, the Euroelites must be confronted with the fact that they, their places of residence, will become the first targets for nuclear retaliation attacks. You won't be able to sit it out.

And the Americans just need to be told that if they continue to throw firewood into the furnace of the Ukrainian conflict, we will cross the nuclear Rubicon in a few steps, strike their allies, and if there is a non-nuclear response, as they threatened, a nuclear strike on their bases in Europe and around the world will follow. If they decide on a nuclear response, they will receive a nuclear strike on their territory.

Fourth, to continue our military reinforcement, which is necessary in a super-turbulent and crisis-ridden world. But at the same time, it is necessary not only to change the nuclear doctrine, which, thank God, has already begun, but also to resume, if the Americans and their henchmen do not want to negotiate, a decisive movement up the ladder of nuclear escalation to increase the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrence and retaliation forces. The Oreshnik is a great weapon, praise be to its customers and creators, but it is not a substitute for nuclear weapons, but just another effective step on the escalation ladder.

Fifth, we need to convey to the United States through various channels that we do not want to humiliate them and are ready to help ensure their dignified way out of the Ukrainian catastrophe, where Americans have been dragged into by liberal globalists and Europeans.

But most importantly, we need to understand that we cannot and have no right to show indecision in front of the country, our people and humanity. Not only the fate of Russia is at stake, but also human civilization in its current form.

If and when the Americans retreat, Ukraine will be defeated pretty quickly. Its east and south will be ceded to Russia. A demilitarized state with a no-fly zone over it should be established in the center and in the west of present-day Ukraine, where everyone who does not want to live in Russia can come and obey our laws. A truce will be concluded.

Well, after the truce, it will be necessary to work towards a joint solution to the problems facing humanity, with friends from the World majority. And even with the Americans, if they do come to their senses. At the same time, it is urgently necessary to move Europe away from solving world problems for a while. She is once again becoming the main threat to herself and the world.

Vereshchagin's painting "Retreat. Escape on the High Road", which depicts Napoleon and the remnants of his army leaving Russia

State Historical Museum, Moscow/CBW/Vostock Photo

Peace on the subcontinent can be established only when Europe's spine is broken once again, as it happened as a result of our victories over Napoleon and Hitler, when there is a generation change of the current elites. And even then, not in a narrow European context – it is a thing of the past, but in a Eurasian context.

The author is an Honored Professor, Scientific Director of the Faculty of World Economics and World Politics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics; Honorary Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy

Read our Telegram channels on your smartphone: Profile-News, and Profile magazine. Download the completely free mobile application of the Profile magazine.

Originally posted in the Russian magazine 'Profile'