Analysis: Fall of Liz Truss is an unexpected gift for Putin

Sergei Lavrov must be laughing his ass off. Two weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian chancellor received his then British counterpart, Liz Truss, to discuss the looming crisis.

In an unusual press conference, the dean of world diplomacy said: “I am honestly disappointed that we have had a conversation between a mute and a deaf.” Truss, in turn, replied: “I see no reason to have 100,000 troops stationed on the border other than to threaten Ukraine.”

History will do justice to the British who has just been one of the shortest prime ministers in office, as Russia was indeed arming its missiles at the time. But in Moscow, the “Schadenfreude”, a German word that defines pleasure in someone else’s downfall, seems inevitable.

Lavrov’s spokeswoman scoffed on Twitter. Maria Zakharova criticized Truss for her “catastrophic illiteracy”—a reference to her February 10 meeting with her boss, in which she confused Russian and Ukrainian regions in crafting her complaint.

Jokes aside, the fall of Truss is a somewhat unexpected gift for Vladimir Putin at a time when the crisis stemming from the Ukrainian War reaches an especially dangerous point, with the Russian annexing 18% of its neighbor and being placed in an exposed military position, resorting to mobilization, martial law and nuclear threats.

This is all with the energy war with Europe in full swing, with European temperatures starting to decline in anticipation of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

Not that the person who replaces Truss should soften Britain’s stance on Russia. The outgoing premier’s hardline was no different from that of her predecessor, Boris Johnson, and the prevailing sentiment in the Conservative Party that she will retain power.

The United Kingdom is, with the Eastern European countries most concerned about Russia, such as Poland and the Baltics, at the forefront of aggressiveness against Moscow. They were successful in attracting the United States to their cause, but it took the war to slowly carry into their camp the economic mammoths of the continent, such as Germany, France and Italy.

Brexit didn’t make things easier for London, but today in speech Europe is almost one. That said, internal fractures mount and threaten governments across the continent, as has already happened in Italy — even though fascism heiress Georgia Meloni has taken a strong stand against Putin, at least for now.

The rapidity of Truss’s downfall, moreover, suggests the risk of a certain “Italianization” of British politics, accustomed to relative stability. Apart from Boris, there are no prominent leaders in the country, just as the equally controversial figure of Silvio Berlusconi has hovered over peninsular politics for decades.

This instability favors Putin. Truss added to the economic pressure from rising fuel and food prices the ineptitude that led to the pound being worth as much as the dollar, something unprecedented.

The inflationary factor, moreover, is still present in British life, increasing popular dissatisfaction. The same happens in other places, as in the France of the weakened Emmanuel Macron. Hungary remains a dubious pole in relation to Moscow, and the far right has come to power in Italy and Sweden, the latter in the process of joining NATO.

It is a scenario of little institutional cohesion, despite the anti-Russian rhetoric, which can always come to favor the Kremlin when the cold comes. It is not so much a question of lack of gas, but of how much will be paid for it: according to the European Union, stocks of the product are at 92% of the reservoirs in the 27 countries of the bloc.

But average prices in the group, which excludes the UK, have risen two-and-a-half times for industrial and state-owned consumers since the start of the year. In homes, the increase was 60%, with energy bills up to ten times higher in some countries.

Russian product replacement is slow. In the first half of the year, 31.4% of the gas consumed in Europe came from Moscow, excluding the British. The annual average so far was around 40%. The United States, Nigeria, Algeria, Qatar and Norway are doing well in the process, but their product is more expensive and, in the case of the first three, depends on units to gasify the liquid input.

The mysterious explosion of 3 of the 4 branches of the Russia-Germany gas pipeline system, which was already closed on Putin’s orders, only added pressure elements. Berlin has approved a €200 billion package to try to protect its industry — double what it had announced in extra military spending due to the war.

If not necessarily going to change the British disposition in the conflict, the fall of Truss weakens, even if momentarily, a vital link in the chain of the so-called War Party among Europeans. For that alone, Putin should already join Lavrov in laughter.