Letter From the Editors

Pavel Durov wants the French government to know that he still has cards to play. Regardless of its factual basis, his accusation by name that the head of French intelligence asked him to “ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections” from using his Telegram platform creates an awkward situation. Notably, rather than his own platform, he used X/Twitter to levy the charges, where Elon Musk responded with “Hear, hear!” Thus, French authorities should understand that, should they cross certain lines in their criminal investigation of Durov, they will face Musk-style Internet rage with real-world consequences.

George Simion, reeling from his upset defeat to Bucharest Mayor Nicosur Dan in Romania’s presidential runoff, seized on the tweet thread as part of his legal challenge to the results. The problem is that Durov denies cooperating with the French request, so his statements aren’t evidence that interference took place. As for the other claims of the lawsuit – ranging from improper advertising by Dan supporters to vote-hacking by Romanian spies – we’ll have to wait for the proof. By nullifying last year’s presidential race and disqualifying the original right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu, Romanian authorities showed an ample quantity of desperation – but couldn’t Simion’s actions equally reflect the desperation of a sore loser?

According to Nikolai Pershin in Novaya gazeta Europe, this pattern – far-right parties coming up just short, and establishment forces frantically throwing up walls to stop them – has increasingly repeated itself across the EU and beyond. Since the start of the Ukraine war heightened political polarization, Pershin found that “far-right parties have strengthened their positions in 18 out of 27 EU countries.”

This has not generally served Putin’s ends, though. Since the right wing’s top and unifying priority is restricting immigration, parties can cast aside their latent Russian sympathies in pursuit of other political goals. Case in point: NG reports that Alternative for Germany, seeking to assuage a threat from a federal extremism watchdog, has shifted its foreign policy and sidelined senior members with Russian ties. Pershin points to precedents in Italy, the Netherlands and elsewhere: “While centrist forces are shifting to the right . . . in an effort to steal their votes, far-right parties are evolving as well.”

One might hope that desperate circumstances would generally incline disputing parties toward compromise. Alas, they more often resort to desperate measures of a more escalatory bent. Donald Trump, who is always either one step ahead of the law or a phone call away from a Nobel Peace Prize, knows this fact as well as anyone, and it may be shaping his unique approach to mediating a Ukraine settlement.

Zelensky, by all accounts in a more desperate position than Putin, has correspondingly adopted the more aggressively conciliatory approach based on Trump’s favored negotiating format: the in-person meeting. After mending fences with the US president at Pope Francis’s funeral, Zelensky challenged Putin to meet him in Istanbul and left the invitation open.

Trump also wants to meet Putin in person, and broached the idea during a phone call between them this week. That’s two balls in the Kremlin’s court. Putin’s response, according to aide Yury Ushakov: “But all the necessary preconditions must be created for this, and both presidents agree that such a meeting requires thorough and comprehensive groundwork” (i.e., a polite but indefinite postponement). Regarding Zelensky’s invitation, we can note the indignation of former prime minister Sergei Stepashin in his interview with AiF: “This request has been noted. But I’m not sure that Zelensky would benefit that much from a meeting with Putin. After all, Putin will simply crush him psychologically.”

But while the combat lines grind slowly westward, Russia faces its own pressures on other fronts. Yulia Starostina reminds us that inflation is on the rise – for food and pharmaceuticals, in particular – despite persistent, stifling interest rates. Expert Igor Eidman notes that recruitment bonuses now run into the millions. Does Putin really hold all the cards?