Washington and Moscow are speeding toward a new era of diplomacy—one that feels less like a reset and more like a surrender. In a whirlwind of high-stakes meetings, the Trump administration is moving at breakneck speed to mend relations with Russia, even as it leaves chaos in its wake at home. But the most alarming development came on February 18, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. Lavrov’s chilling remark that the two sides had agreed to “eliminate impediments” to closer ties sent a wave of fear through Russian exiles—including me—who once saw the United States as a sanctuary.
But exiles are the least of Vladimir Putin’s concerns. His ambitions stretch far beyond political dissidents or even Ukraine itself. The Russian president has been dreaming of redrawing the world map for years, much like Joseph Stalin did with Roosevelt and Churchill in Yalta in 1945. And now, at long last, Trump has placed the perfect tool in his hands.
How do I know this? Because Putin and his inner circle have been saying it for years. His fixation on Yalta isn’t just about glorifying Stalin or the Soviet Union’s former might—it’s about a blueprint for the future. The Kremlin sees the post-WWII agreements, which allowed the USSR to absorb the Baltic states and dominate Eastern Europe, as the only legitimate model for international borders. And as Russia commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Yalta Accords, Lavrov and the regime’s revisionist historians made their intentions clear: It’s time to reshape the world order, once again.
Putin’s ideological architect, Alexander Dugin, took it a step further this week in a bombshell interview with Glenn Greenwald. Casually justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Dugin painted it as merely the first step toward reclaiming Russia’s lost empire. He even laid out potential terms for ending the war—partition, demilitarization, and “denazification” of Ukraine—using the exact same language the Allies applied to Germany in 1945. On social media, he’s even bolder. In the run-up to Germany’s elections, he taunted, “Vote AfD or we will occupy Germany once more and divide it between Russia and USA.” Even seasoned German journalists were left wondering: Is this real?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky understands the scale of the threat—not just to his country, but to Europe itself. But when he attempted to sound the alarm in a heated Oval Office meeting with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, the response was fury. Trump erupted, demanding that Zelensky recognize his powerlessness and show gratitude instead. The meeting collapsed in chaos.
What does this mean for Ukraine now? The best-case scenario before Zelensky’s visit was bleak: Russia agreeing to a cease-fire in exchange for the 20% of Ukraine it currently occupies. But after the disastrous Washington talks, even that seems impossible. Instead, we’re staring down a nightmare scenario—one where Putin, emboldened and unchecked, launches a fresh offensive on Ukraine, this time with tacit U.S. approval.
Putin doesn’t just want a return to the past—he already lives there. And if history tells us anything, the world should be looking at 1938, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain handed Adolf Hitler the Sudetenland in a disastrous bid for “peace.” Less than a year later, Hitler invaded Poland, and World War II began. When Trump warned Zelensky of the risk of World War III, he may not have realized just how historically accurate he was.
If Putin’s unchecked aggression spreads across Europe with the U.S. looking the other way—or even playing along—the consequences will be impossible to predict. One thing is certain: the world as we know it is over. We’re entering uncharted, dangerous territory.
For those of us who have lived through this kind of upheaval before, the feeling is all too familiar. Russian and Belarusian exiles around the world are gripped by déjà vu, watching as power brokers and billionaires, like The Washington Post’s owner Jeff Bezos, quietly align themselves with Trumpism. Meanwhile, Zelensky—the only leader in the room with clarity and courage—is painted as the outlier.
We’ve seen this movie before. We know how it ends. But what we never expected was to see it unfold in the United States. For years, many of us believed America was different—a nation immune to the creeping forces of authoritarianism. “It was nice to know there was one country where the people in charge were, if not likable, then at least sane,” said Ksenia Mironova, a young Russian journalist who fled her homeland three years ago.
Mironova’s fiancé is serving a 22-year sentence for high treason in a Russian prison colony. She herself fled through six countries before finding refuge in New York. Now, her sense of security is vanishing. At the start of her semester, she received an email notifying her that her funding had been cut off due to a Trump executive order.
“Where am I supposed to go?” she asked. Returning to Russia is impossible. And if Trump fully embraces Putin, the United States won’t be an option either.
She laughs darkly. “And even Mars is going to be colonized by Musk.”
