A few years ago, I had a conversation with a former head of our intelligence service:
“There’s an unobvious way the enemy can negatively impact a state. It involves actively promoting and orchestrating the placement of individuals into key positions—people who, due to their psychological profile and incompetence, are capable of delivering the outcomes the enemy desires.
It’s simple because the person is often, or always, unaware of the consequences their actions and decisions will lead to. They might even be pleased with the progress and believe everything is going according to their own wishes. And in their logic, it’s the right course of action.
Yet these decisions are often, or always, predictable. As are the results.
As a result, the state apparatus can, at a critical moment, find itself paralyzed or destabilized to the extent required by the enemy to achieve its goals.”

The uniqueness of State Number 1 lies in the fact that its leaders, through their actions, can harm not only themselves but the entire world.
Because long ago, people for whom not just the suit but its “wearer” mattered decided they could—and therefore must—create rather than destroy.
Now, when the suit takes precedence, entirely different people at the helm of State Number 1 have decided that the centuries-long history of the United States was a mistake. They’ve decided they are more important than the U.S. They’ve decided they must destroy rather than create.
It’s not hard for anyone with a brain to predict how this will end.

The fact that in many post-Soviet countries, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s editorial offices were often the only independent voices preventing Russia from turning local governments into corrupt vassal states is now one of the greatest threats to those countries.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has no bureaus in France, Germany, or the United Kingdom.
Because those are established democracies where a prime minister resigns after entering a room with people during a lockdown—whether they’re a good or bad leader—and a former president faces a corruption verdict.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty could speak where speaking was forbidden. And the trend of the last 50 days suggests that speaking will soon be forbidden even in the places from which that right once spread.

In February 2024, the Russian government declared Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s activities “undesirable” in Russia.
Today, the President of the United States has done the same. Only he has decided to declare Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s activities undesirable worldwide.
Expecting one dictator to clash with another dictator over this is a futile hope.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty—75 years.
I wish for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to outlast Trump’s presidency. I wish the same for independent American institutions. And I wish the same for the great United States of America.
Support and respect to my colleagues!

Mykhailo Tkach