In the Former Eastern Bloc, They’re Terrified of a Trump Presidency
That includes efforts not just to seize land like Russia has done in Ukraine or in Georgia or threatens to do in places like Moldova or the Baltics, but also to engineer political tilts toward Moscow and to promote laws and leaders favorable to Moscow’s interests—in Georgia and Moldova but also in places like Bulgaria, where a pro-Russian tilt among populists is readily apparent. These efforts echo the progress Putin has already made in Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia by supporting pro-Russian governments.
Further, there is a widespread concern, most recently manifested in the wake of several incidents in Poland, of Russia employing “hybrid measures” like sabotage to damage and weaken neighboring governments that oppose it. Threatening language from Putin and his supporters directed at new members of NATO like Sweden and Finland, at the Baltics, and indeed at all of NATO are the reason that most of those states closest to Russia are so committed to stopping Russia in Ukraine and making the country pay a heavy price for its aggression as a way of mitigating the threat they collectively face from Moscow.
How Trump may handle these issues in a new administration with a new team is of grave concern to those in the region and U.S. experts. For example, Hertling told me, “One of the other things I heard (from Europeans) after Trump was elected was that while he and his staff in the [White House] were often out of touch with the culture and issues in Europe, several European leaders told me they depended on the ‘old hands’ in State, and the competency of the military assigned to Europe, to keep things on the rails. I would be afraid that the 2025 plan would take those old hands out of their positions, replacing them with those who don’t understand the history of the former Soviet satellites, their fight for freedom over the last three decades, or the intricacies of places like Transnistria, South Ossetia/Abkhazia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. If Russian actions are not countered in Ukraine, those who used to be under the Russian boot—the Baltics, Poland, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria—would then be in the crosshairs. We are already seeing increased Russian actions in Georgia, Moldova, Poland, and Kaliningrad.” (Kaliningrad Oblast is Russian territory that sits between Lithuania and Poland, extending to the Baltic, a vestige of post–World War II territorial division that provides a strategic forward position for the Russians in Eastern Europe.)
