Some of the most influential military bloggers in Russia have not hesitated to criticize what they consider a “dirty treatment” by President Vladimir Putin with his counterpart in the US, Donald Trump, in relation to the conversations they are carrying out to negotiate the final of the war in Ukraine. Experts, many are war veterans or worked with mercenaries for the Wagner group, have used hard terms to refer to bilateral negotiations that could lead to a peace agreement.
Vladimir Romanov, known as Romanov Light in Telegramhe was one of the first to express his discontent. In a publication on February 27, he questioned the possible arrival of a military contingent composed of forces of NATO countries, including France, which helps maintain peace in Ukraine. “As a result of the agreement, NATO bases will be deployed in Ukraine. A great result,” he ironized.
Various Russian media, according to the , They have also collected the discomfort that has extended among these bloggers experts in the armed forces, to those who define as “room patriots”, referring to a propaganda video that continues to circulate in prorous channels of Telegram in which these voices are ridiculed by positioning themselves against a possible agreement with the United States.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, is trying to make up these negotiations with Trump as a strategic victory. According to Verstka, Sources close to the Russian Government say that state media have been instructed to present to the president of the United States as “an oppressed man both at home and in Europe”, who has been “wise to respond to the hand laid out of Russia.” However, from the Kremlin they have rejected these accusations, ensuring that specific directives have been issued on how to cover relations between Russia and the United States.
President Putin, meanwhile, has warned about “forces” seeking to undermine negotiations. In addition, it has suggested that it would allow Trump to access rare metals in the annexed regions of Ukraine and has been open to the presence of European peace forces in the country. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) supported these information in its last analysis, noting that Kremlin is determined to “manipulate Trump and divide the West.”
In social networks, reactions have not been waiting either. The former Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Gerashchenko, wrote in X (formerly Twitter): “The ‘Z-Russians’ are still resentful of negotiations and say that the ‘shameful agreement’. But the Russian propagandists have already been instructed to convince the people that this is a victory.”
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov confirmed that details are being prepared for a meeting between Putin and Trump, although no date or place has yet been set. The challenge for the Kremlin will now be to convince a population accustomed to the warmary rhetoric that an agreement with the US and Ukraine is not a betrayal, but a master play. Something that, according to critics, may not be so easy.
