During the first months of his new term, Donald Trump’s political moves seem to have strengthened Moscow’s position, either through concessions to the Ukrainian issue or by dismantling institutions that have supported US power for decades.

If Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wrote a list of wishes from Washington, it would be difficult to win what was offered within the first 100 days of President Trump’s new term, the New York Times said.

Pressure towards Ukraine to grant territories to Russia, a promise to lift sanctions and exemption for the invasion of Ukraine.

Despite his meeting with Ukraine President Volodimir Zelenski on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, his vision of peace continues to appear unilaterally, allowing Russia to maintain the territories he occupied by violence.

But these are not the only benefits Putin has gained from Trump’s return to power. Deliberate or not, many of the President’s actions on other fronts also serve Moscow’s interests, including the ruptures it has caused with the traditional allies of America and the changes it has brought to the US government itself.

Trump has weakened institutions that have long been disturbed by Moscow, such as the Voice of America and the National Endowment for Democracy. It has temporarily suspended cyberspace and has limited programs aimed at tackling Russian misinformation, electoral intervention, sanctions violations and war crimes.

In addition, it excluded Russia from the duties it has imposed on almost any other country, arguing that it is already subject to sanctions. However, it imposed duties on Ukraine, with which it negotiates. And, in a reversal of his first term, according to Politico’s information, Trump’s team is considering lifting the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project he had repeatedly condemned.

“Trump has played exactly as Putin wanted,” said Ivo Daalder, chief executive of Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former US ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama. “It is hard to imagine that he would act differently if he was a Russian agent.”

Caroline Levit, a White House spokesman, rejected the criticism that Trump’s actions favor Russia. “The president is acting only in the interest of the United States,” he said in an interview.

He added that there is no connection between Russia and cuts to various organizations organized by the Government Efficiency Service of Ilon Musk, known as Doge, or other similar initiatives to reduce the size of the government.

“Doge has nothing to do with our national security team’s efforts to end the war,” he said. “These are not conscious decisions of the president to calm Russia. What it does for Russia and Ukraine are efforts to soothe the world, ending the war and bringing a peaceful solution. “

Trump has long rejected the criticisms that want him for a forgotten Russia, although he has expressed admiration for Putin. This week, however, in a rare move, he reprimanded Putin, after a missile attack on Kiev that killed at least twelve people, inviting him through social networks to stop: “Vladimir, stop!” He wrote.

Speaking to reporters later, Trump denied that he only put pressure on Ukraine for concessions. “We also put a lot of pressure in Russia, and Russia knows it,” he said.

When asked what Moscow should give under a peacekeeping agreement, Trump only replied that Russia would not be able to understand the whole of Ukraine, something that had not been able to militarily even in the three years of its full -scale invasion. “Stopping the war, stopping the occupation of the whole country is a pretty big concession,” he said.

What is striking, however, from his return. Trump in power is how many of his actions in the last three months have been perceived as beneficial to Russia, directly or indirectly to such an extent that Russian officials in Moscow have praised him publicly and have celebrated for many of his moves.

When Trump dismantled Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, two US -funded organizations and broadcasting independent news to Russia, Margarita Simonian, head of the Russian state -owned RT, described the “wonderful decision”. “Unfortunately we failed to close them, but America did it on its own,” he added.

These are just two of the government agencies that have been targeted by Trump and Musk, to Moscow’s great satisfaction. Russia has long seen the USAid International Development Service (USAID), the National Foundation for the Republic (NED), the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, organizations that fund democratic programs, which the Kremlin considers to be a threat to its status, are in danger of being dismantled.

The new Foreign Ministry restructuring plan under Marco Rubio also aims to bother Russia, such as the Office for Democracy and Human Rights, which will be merged into a new Foreign Aid Service. Rubio said the office had become a “platform for left -wing activists attacking conservative leaders” in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Brazil.

“The end result is that this will benefit Putin’s Russia in the long run,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis. “These programs for the promotion of democracy have been a tool for decades to win allies and to enhance America’s image in the world. With our retreat, we give Russia to intervene. “

At the same time, analysts note that the Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine, though favorable to Russia, does not cover all the points that Moscow considers critical, such as the removal of all foreign military forces from Ukraine.

“It does not touch a number of issues that Russia considers the first priority in the war negotiations in Ukraine,” he said, “and the concessions are not necessarily the most important to Moscow.”

Some of the organizations affected by the Trump government’s cuts resist, and it is not clear how many of these changes will eventually be implemented. Federal judge blocked the dismantling of Voice of America this week, with the Trump government appealing on Friday. The National Endowment for Democracy and other organizations also appealed to the courts.

However, there is no appeal for other initiatives. Rubio closed earlier this month an office watching Russian and other foreign misinformation campaigns, arguing that the Biden government was using it to “censor American voices”.

The government has also closed the special team to commit Russian oligarchs, weakened the efforts to protect election from foreign interventions, has left international investigations into the responsibility of leaders’ invasion of Ukraine, and has freezed the funding.

In addition, the government canceled a position aimed at collecting evidence for Russian war crimes in Ukraine, according to the Washington Post. And he suspended a cyberspace against Russia, citing the need not to disturb the peace talks about Ukraine before finally allowing it to be executed.

In addition, Trump has in his environment people with ties to Moscow who want to influence American politics. Ed Martin, Deputy Attorney General of Trump in Washington, appeared more than 150 times in Russian state -run RT and Sputnik, promoting Russian propaganda, according to the Washington Post.

The proposal that Russia will maintain the territories it occupied as part of a balanced peace agreement is widely recognized as inevitable. But Trump goes farther, proposing official recognition by the United States of Russian Audit in Crimea, which Russia occupied by Ukraine in 2014 in violation of international law, an additional step of legalization that shocked both Ukraine and its allies in Washington.

Such a move will reverse the policy of the first Trump government. In 2018, the Foreign Ministry under Trump had issued the “Crimea Declaration”, reaffirming the “refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s sovereignty in terms of territory forcibly”, likening the situation with the US refusal to recognize its rule.

In 2022, then Senator Marco Rubio had signed legislation banning the recognition of Russian sovereignty in any occupied Ukrainian territory. “The United States cannot recognize Putin’s claims, otherwise we are in danger of creating a dangerous precedent that other authoritarian forces, such as the Communist Party of China, could mimic,” Rubio had then said.

On the contrary, in a new interview with Time, Trump made it clear that the United States could actually recognize Putin’s claim. In fact, he actually did it already, without waiting for an agreement to be completed.

“Crimea will remain in Russia,” he said in an interview on Friday. He re -accused Ukraine for the start of the war, saying that “the war began when they began to speak of NATO membership.”

The overall result of Trump’s turn to Russia and the deconstruction of US institutions that bothered the Kremlin is the weakening of the US position against a big opponent, said David Simer, former adviser to President Joe Biden.