1. How did the hybrid wars by the USA catalyze the Russia-Ukraine conflict? Can you give us an example? How does hybrid war operate in this case?

The US-led West spent decades attempting to manipulate the perceptions of the Ukrainian people through so-called NGOs, quite a few of which are actually government-organized NGOs or GONGOs. That created the on-the-ground socio-political infrastructure for carrying out their Color Revolution against former President Yanukovich that began in late 2013 after he unexpectedly refused to sign an association agreement with the EU. Those anti-government demonstrations quickly spiraled into a spree of urban terrorism that ultimately ended in a coup in late February 2014.

The reason why the US wanted to overthrow the Ukrainian government was to eventually transform the state into an anti-Russian proxy from which NATO could secretly prepare to attack that Eurasian Great Power, exactly as President Putin explained last week in his speeches to the nation on 21 February and 24 February. This explains the resurgence of fascist ideology in Ukraine, which isn’t so much an organic grassroots phenomenon as it is an externally promoted information warfare campaign designed to sustainably manipulate its targeted audience’s perceptions in order to keep them anti-Russian.

2. Do you think that Russia can lose the public opinion for being the “aggressor” of this war? Is this something that is being cooked by the media?

It’s practically impossible for Russia to win over public opinion in the West since that audience has been incessantly fed anti-Russian propaganda since at least 2014, not to mention how unprecedentedly it intensified ahead of the 2016 elections as a result of the Russigate conspiracy theory and its years-long investigation that ultimately absolved former US President Trump of accusations that he was President Putin’s puppet. The best that Russia can therefore hope for is to win public opinion in the non-West where the media situation is mostly comparatively freer and folks haven’t been fed the same amount of anti-Russian propaganda. Some of those societies are also very Russian-friendly in general too.

3. You said that “Brazil and Ukraine have both been victims of hybrid wars led by the United States with the aim of strengthening US unipolar hegemony”. Can you explain the similarities?

Brazil was on the path of becoming a globally significant Great Power under its multipolar leadership, which the US considered to be a latent threat to its hegemonic control over the hemisphere with time, one that had to be preemptively thwarted by all means possible. Washington therefore sought to weaponize legal instruments through media-initiated “lawfare” orchestrated by its intelligence services in order to carry out regime change in Brasilia.

As for Ukraine, its former leadership’s unexpected last-minute refusal to sign the EU Association Agreement in late 2013 served as the “trigger event” for activating the US’ regime change “sleeper cells” in the country. Washington was concerned that Kiev would leverage its geostrategic position to become a bridge between Moscow and the West so it sought to capture control of the state through its urban warfare-driven Color Revolution coup in order to transform it into an anti-Russian proxy.

4. What’s the main goal of the USA in both cases — Ukraine and Brazil?

The goal was exactly as was earlier explained, to restore the US’ unipolar hegemony in each of those targeted countries’ respective regions through Hybrid War means that varied in each case but shared the same grand strategic goal.

5. Are Zelensky and Bolsonaro the result of the hybrid wars led by the USA?

Yes, but indirectly since the US didn’t initially plan for either to rise to power as a result of its successful Hybrid Wars on Ukraine and Brazil. Zelensky and Bolsonaro are byproducts of those campaigns, not the intended result, but they nevertheless served the US’ unipolar hegemonic interests, albeit to different extents. To his credit, Bolsonaro has thus far refused to decisively turn against China like he threatened to do during the campaign and has also retained pragmatic relations with Russia.

It’s unclear exactly why that is, but from an outsider’s perspective, it suggests the existence of some forces within his permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) who have reasonable reservations about the consequences of doing so for Brazil’s sovereignty. Zelensky, however, has dutifully done whatever his US patrons demanded. That’s because his post-“Maidan” country is completely dependent on the US whereas Brazil still retains some semblance of strategic autonomy.

6. Who are the saboteurs nowadays? Are they secret agents or does the USA not need them anymore?

There will always remain socio-political, economic, academic, media, and “deep state” forces whose interests align with the US’ unipolar hegemonic ones even if they aren’t always conscious of this being the case. That said, there also exist those who knowingly advance such interests due to their connection to the US, whether indirectly or directly, including by being on the payroll of its secret services. The second category of folks who is less than the first, who they rely upon to obfuscate their very existence and legitimize their interests in the public sphere.

7. Is there a real difference between Trump and Biden? If so, which is it in terms of the hybrid wars?

The only difference between those two is cosmetic since practically all of Trump’s “deep state” remained in place following Biden’s entrance to the White House. The US’ grand strategic goal of restoring its unipolar hegemony remains constant and won’t ever change, it’s just that some representatives of the US – including at the presidency level – sometimes go about it in different ways and by employing different rhetoric.

8. There are rumors that Carlos Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son and advisor, went to Russia with his father to learn how to manipulate the elections with fake news and other things. Do you think that is possible?

Those rumors are unlikely to be true since Russia has proven that it can pragmatically cooperate with any Brazilian leadership, be it Lula, Dilma, or Bolsonaro, in spite of the latter being considered to be a very pro-US figure for the most part. Moscow’s interests therefore don’t appear to be credibly threatened in any way regardless of the outcome of the next elections to inspire it to show any interest in shaping the vote. It might be the case that Carlos Bolsonaro perhaps sought to learn more about Russian media’s engagement strategy with various audiences and that this could have been spun by his opponents as supposed “proof” that not only does he plan to manipulate the elections, but that Russia is allegedly willing to help him. That said, all of this is unconfirmed and just pure speculation for now.

9. What do you think is the solution for the conflict in Ukraine?

The ideal solution would have been for Kiev to have implemented the UNSC-backed Minsk Accords instead of initiating the third round of civil war hostilities in Eastern Ukraine that served as the immediate humanitarian pretext for Russia’s special operation there. The US should also have respected Russia’s security guarantee requests for ensuring the integrity of its national security red lines by sincerely negotiating with the Kremlin instead of dismissively rejecting everything that it asked.

The strategic situation drastically shifted since neither of that happened and Russia was forced to militarily act in defense of its citizens in Eastern Ukraine as well as to neutralize the threat that NATO’s secret infrastructure in that country posed to Russia’s national security red lines according to President Putin in his address to the nation on 24 February. The outcome of that campaign will likely see Ukraine removing the goal of NATO membership from its constitution and recommitting to neutrality.

This very diverse country whose international borders were artificially created by Lenin and his Communist Party for self-serving political reasons might also undergo radical administrative-political reforms to ensure that its many minorities’ rights are better respected. As for resolving the undeclared US-provoked missile crisis in Europe that’s truly at the heart of the current crisis, that might not happen anytime soon so it’s expected that military-strategic tensions between the US and Russia will remain.

The interview was originally published in Portuguese under the title “’É guerra híbrida’: analista americano sediado na Rússia fala ao DCM sobre Ucrânia e o golpe em Dilma”.