Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin shocked the audience at the annual security conference in Munich in 2007, demanding that the influence of dominating the United States and the new balance of power that Europe is more suitable for Moscow.
He didn’t get what he wanted at that time.
Nearly two decades later, at the same meeting, a senior official in President Trump’s cabinet made one thing clear: Mr. Putin found a U.S. government that could help him realize his dream.
Comments by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance raised concerns among attendees that the United States could be consistent with Russia under the new administration, either attacking Europe or completely Give up Europe.
Analysts say such a shift will make Mr. Putin’s victory more important to him than any Ukraine’s goal.
“Since the dawn of the Cold War in the late 1940s, the Kremlin has dreamed of removing the United States from the cornerstone of European security,” said Andrew S. Weiss, vice president of research at the Carnegie International Peace Endowment Foundation. “Putin is certainly savvy enough to raid any vacancy offered by the new administration.”
Since the end of World War II, the existence of the U.S. military has been the foundation of 80 years of peace in Western Europe. But in a speech in Warsaw on Friday, Mr. Heggs warned European leaders that they should not think that the United States will exist forever.
Later that day, at the Munich conference, Mr. Vance conveyed a more terrifying message to many European participants: He saw not Russia or China, but Europe itself.
Mr. Vance set out to attack European countries because he used what he called an undemocratic method to limit the far-right parties supported by Russia in some cases. He argued that the continent needs to recognize the desires of voters, stop trying to ease false information in an undemocratic way, but instead allow such parties to flourish as the will of the people.
“If you worry about your voters, there’s nothing the United States can do about you,” Vance said. “For that matter, there’s no way you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump.”
Mr. Vance attacked in Romania in particular, and the country canceled the presidential election in December, a supranationalist supported by a distinct Russian influence looked ready to win. The election has been rescheduled for May.
“If your democracy is destroyed from a foreign digital ad, it’s not very powerful at the beginning,” he said.
For years, the Kremlin has tried to undermine Europe by promoting Mr. Vance’s belief that thriving parties must be allowed. On the same day he made a remark at the meeting, Mr. Vance met with leaders of the German Extreme Right movement, which is participating in national elections this month to promote attempts by Russian parties to legitimize.
Moscow also tried to push the wedge between the United States and Europe, realizing that the destruction of the long-standing European Atlantic alliance from within would lead to a world where Moscow could exert more power.
Nathalie Tocci, director of the Rome Institute for International Affairs, watched Mr. Vance’s speech and interpreted the information as a direct U.S. threat to the EU, both the far-right Europeans and the Kremlin attempted to demolish it. She calls it a plot twist in America.
Ms Tosi said, “The plot is that we are destroying you there.”
“The point is not even Ukraine,” she added. “The key is that Ukraine is part of it, if not destroying Europe.”
Ms. Torqui describes Mr. Vance’s remarks as an attack on European democracy, which distorts the language of democracy itself, like the way Russia often does when it tries to sow the divisions within Europe.
When Putin articulated his vision at the Munich Conference in 2007, Europe’s dramatic reorganization of power seemed like a dream. Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates sat in the audience and later refuted the remarks to defeat the Cold War.
However, the Russian leader has been sticking to his vision, which makes it the core point of his argument in the months leading to the war: the West must be willing to discuss not only the sovereignty of Ukraine, but also the entire security agency in Europe, This is the entire security agency in Europe that he claims to omit Moscow and believes it is risky.
Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a broader battle with the West, and his portrayal of awakening values was disgusting, and Mr. Trump and European extremist regime leaders also seized power in their own countries.
Mr. Putin believes that the United States and Europe will eventually succumb to him.
Mr. Banov wrote that the United States is changing and that Washington is now “gets closer to Moscow, not for Europe, but for its own sake, and even a bit of Europe’s presence.”
The challenge for Europe is because Germany and France, two of the EU’s largest countries, have suffered from leadership crises, partly because the political movement wielded the same remarks as Mr. Trump. In 2015, Germany and France led the end of Mr. Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine.
The UK has created public support from the European Union due to a Trump campaign, which has greatly weakened its impact on the mainland.
The deal between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin will not be clear how far away, and emerging links between Washington and Moscow will easily evaporate during negotiations in Ukraine, which will begin the week of the meeting between the U.S. and Russian representatives in Saudi Arabia.
However, foreign leaders have managed to attract Mr. Trump’s position before, and so far, Russia is gaining benefits from the new administration.
The Kremlin has achieved a series of victories since Mr. Trump returned to the White House.
Less than a month after his second term, Mr. Trump was evacuated by USAID, a long-time U.S. foreign aid agency in Moscow. He advanced cabinet officials, who often traveled at the Kremlin conversation points, including Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of U.S. intelligence. He intensified dissonance with Europe, threatening Washington’s closest allies with the trade war. He gave and enhanced Elon Musk’s ability, who spread falsehoods on X that benefited Moscow and publicly advocated support for the German far-right movement.
Mr. Trump will now affect how the biggest conflict on the continent has been resolved since World War II, with the impact that could exceed Ukraine itself to affect a broader security balance in Europe.
Leaders who view the rebellious right-wing populist movement as a threat to the European Union and the continent’s freedoms, feared, especially given the obvious alignment of Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.
“This is our most vulnerable moment,” Ms Tosi said.
She added: “If what you end up doing is destroying this project, this is the moment to do it.”
