In an exclusive interview with Channel 24,Political commentator Yuri Rashkin analyzed Donald Trump’s latest statements, Russia’s threats to Elon Musk, and Vladimir Putin’s fears.

Among the key topics of the conversation were why the Kremlin is shifting the escalation to space, why Trump is making grandiose financial promises to Americans, and why, according to Rashkin, the current U.S. administration is “so much in Putin’s pocket” that it is unlikely to exert any real pressure on him. More details in the material.

Today, Dmitry Medvedev warned that actions against the Russian satellite network could lead to a space war, with Starlink satellites falling like Christmas tree ornaments. What message is Moscow sending to Trump and Elon Musk through this dramatic rhetoric? And how can Washington take this threat seriously without letting Medvedev dictate its decisions?

Trump has already told Medvedev that since he’s such a pathetic figure, that’s precisely why Putin is the real boss. Obviously, Trump is “wife number one,” and Medvedev isn’t the boss. So we know they’ve already discussed this and sorted it out.

We can simply acknowledge that they had this moment and move on. Russia is in a terrible situation. When you look at the front lines, things are not going well at all for Russia.

Their best hopes that Donald Trump would hand Ukraine over to them within 24 hours have been dashed by yet another failure on Trump’s part. Now he’s making empty promises again, and no matter who he promises them to, he can never deliver on what he says.

I think Medvedev is now trying to scare the United States and our Elon Musk, who was just appointed to be in charge of the Pentagon’s future or something like that. So there’s a connection here. We’re also seeing control over state resources shifting to oligarchs who are extremely wealthy and are playing an increasingly important role in shaping the direction of the United States.

When you see Russia criticizing a private individual with a private company, we have to understand that SpaceX has contracts worth billions with the Pentagon, and Musk is an incredibly influential person. Perhaps the attack on Musk is more relevant than the criticism of Pete Hagseth, who is a “clown,” according to Thomas Friedman.

Full interview: watch the video

It makes sense for Russia to “attack” Musk, who is currently preventing Russians from using Starlink. Another point is that with Russia, it’s only a matter of time. If they have no intention of stopping and coming to the conclusion that this war was a bad idea, it means that the longer they deplete their resources, the more they will gradually adapt and find new ways. And if not them, then China.

That is precisely why an endless war with Russia is actually not a good idea for anyone. Russia must be defeated quickly, before it figures out its next move. For example, right now we have drones that are harder for Ukraine to stop, because as the war progresses, each side makes adjustments, and we see these fluctuations in the escalation of armaments.

So this will spill over into space. I think it’s inevitable, and it’s also the next arena of threats. Russia has been brandishing its nuclear threat since the third day of this war, and it seems that it’s not really working very well and isn’t as scary anymore.

So Russia needs a new level of escalation and new threats. As long as they can’t do anything on the ground, they’re hoping that by threatening the world’s ability to communicate and shifting the escalation into space, they’ll force the world to eventually stop supporting Ukraine. That has always been their goal.

If people are afraid of Russia or want to play into its hands, they’ll get scared and say, “Wow, we have to make peace with Russia. This is terrible.” But if people say, “Wow, Russia is a threat; they’re acting irresponsibly,” then such reports should serve as a reminder that we need to increase our aid to Ukraine and strengthen our resistance.

Right now, every member of the Trump family has their own Russian oligarch backing them. This administration is so “in Putin’s pocket” that it’s hard to imagine they’re going to put any pressure on him, other than to make a little money.

The members of this administration are quite wealthy – why do they need money from the Kremlin? They have enough money for their parties and their causes.

It seems that for them, a little more money would always be good, and a lot more money would be very good – and Russia seems to be exploiting that.

The idea is that capitalists follow the path we offer them and say, “This makes financial sense,” even though this profit will lead us to the brink of disaster. We’re simply falling for this Russian approach, which is all about money for a small number of people.

The Russian approach is never about making people’s lives better. It’s about expanding the government’s power. They manipulate those in power to corrupt someone else in another country or support another movement for their own ideas, which ultimately leads to greater wealth and power.

The problem with this administration is that for someone to want to be there, they must either fully believe in what Trump is selling or be greedy enough not to notice it. Greed can be self-interest, as in the case of Marco Rubio, who is staking his political hopes on it.

In the Republican Party, you “have to be Trump,” because these people are now monarchists. They just want Trump. And then they want another Trump: there’s Donald, there’s Eric, there’s Barron, maybe even Ivanka.

This whole approach suits members of the administration all too well. When our Secretary of Commerce, Howard Latnik, reported that he earned $250 million last year, in any other administration that would have been grounds for an investigation.

You shouldn’t enter public service to make money. You should leave public service to be able to make money. These people don’t seem to realize that there’s likely a conflict of interest. Trump trades stocks – he buys and sells them – and it’s ridiculous. This shouldn’t be happening.

On the eve of the midterm congressional elections, Trump promised payments of about $100 to each of the 20 million elderly Americans to help pay for their Medicare premiums. In early September, he also promised Americans $5,000 each if the Republicans won the midterm elections. Why should voters trust these promises when so many people are dissatisfied with his administration and the cost of living? And will he be able to regain trust with this ploy?

I think he’d like to. There are so many things wrong with this. Starting with the fact that he’s fighting communism while acting like a communist, simply handing out government money left and right.

This confuses some people in the United States who understand that 2 plus 2 equals four. There’s an interesting dynamic with these payments because it doesn’t work. They were talking about 5,000, then he proposed paying $100 to retirees for medical care, and that’s a pittance. It’s just insulting.

When he talks about these numbers, we say, “Okay, that covers the past, but I have bills that are getting higher every day – how is he going to solve the problem, rather than just trying to bribe all of us?” Americans sense this and say they don’t trust him because he breaks his promises.

He promised to resolve the situation in Ukraine within 24 hours. He said he wasn’t going to start any wars, yet we’ve been in Iran for seven months now. So the problem of trust in Trump is obvious.

Another aspect I find fascinating when we talk about corruption is: whose money is it? When it comes to his projects, he tries to spend public money, but Congress has to approve it, and that’s where the problems lie.

Then the Russians have enough money to pay for Donald’s vanity architectural projects. But do the Russians have enough money to give every American $5,000 so we’ll vote for Trump? Pay us, we’ll vote for Trump, and then Trump will do for Russia what he’s been doing.

I don’t think Russia has that kind of money. Because $5,000 for everyone comes to $1.3 trillion. That doesn’t seem like the kind of money Russia has.

I know they’re talking about 12 trillion that Dmitry has stashed under his mattress in the form of contracts. If you want to help Trump – forget about a tunnel under Siberia or Alaska – just pay the Americans, because Russia has benefited significantly from our policies.

Russia owes us a fortune for all the damage it has caused us. Reparations – that would be nice. But I don’t think that will happen, because ultimately Trump wants to spend our taxpayers’ money to get our money back, and he wants to get money back from Russia.

He’s not interested in actually improving the situation. He’s just trying to get through the next two months, win this election, and try to avoid a Democratic majority that will launch an investigation into his ties to Russia.

The Democrats are unlikely to talk about Russia as much as I’d like them to, because they’ll consider it political hyperbole. They’ll talk about the Trump family’s criminality and corruption, but “corruption” will come to mean Russia.

Trump and his sons have more than enough money to pay for an island or fireworks if they wanted to. They don’t want to. They want to socialize the losses and reap all the profits.

If you’re paying Americans, it’s taxpayer money. That’s a very Soviet approach. That’s what Russia does with everything when they distort the meaning of law and justice. Trump is simply trying to dance the Russian dance here in America.

I think Americans are extremely dissatisfied because the transition from America to Russia isn’t going very well. It’s obvious that Trump has his own agenda, and it has nothing to do with the interests of the American people.

Trump said he likes Kim Jong-un. Someone asked why he’s so nice to Xi Jinping, and Trump replied, “Isn’t it good to get along with the leaders of major nuclear powers?” He thinks these leaders are very powerful because they have nuclear weapons. Do you agree with that answer?

It depends on how we measure power. I believe Trump has always been infatuated with men who don’t need to ask anyone for permission. He’s like a spoiled child.

He just wants to be able to do whatever he wants, and for everyone around him to tell him what a genius he is. To do that, you need to be either the owner of a family business or a dictator. Trump used to be the owner of a family business, and now he’s trying to be a dictator.

The problem is that he isn’t running a country designed for a dictatorship. It’s like if I had a powerful tractor but tried to win a drag race. It’s the wrong machine.

When Trump tries to use an American tractor to beat dictators at their own game, it just doesn’t work. We have free markets, democracy, and schedules. It’s hard to lay siege to an enemy when you know that your siege will be judged by voters in a couple of months, and they might kick you out or significantly limit your power.

All of this maneuvering that Trump is doing right now, trying to improve our lives before November 3, is very transparent. I don’t even want to think about what gas prices will be like after November 3.

There are important political issues that Trump refuses to address because he wants to be a dictator and can’t accept feedback from the people.

You don’t declare martial law because you’re a loser. You either take political action or lose the election and go home. But for Trump, there’s no way out of the White House. For him, it’s really either the White House, prison, or Rostov, where Yanukovych fled.

Many of my Ukrainian viewers have written that the more they see Trump, the more they say, “Wow, he really does sound like Yanukovych.” Here in America, we don’t want to set our tires on fire and march on Washington. We just want to go to the polls and vote, hoping that democracy will take care of itself.

But it turns out that many laws are simply agreements, and Trump is undermining our standards so significantly that we really need to change many laws to put the country in a more stable position. What’s happening with Ukraine is deplorable, and the fact that Trump has washed his hands of it is reason enough for any sensible person to vote against him.

This week we saw Putin’s speech at the Valdai Forum, which was moved to a secret location. A few days before it began, participants were informed of the actual location because Putin fears Ukrainian drone attacks. How do you assess this fear of Putin’s?

I think we’re getting closer and closer to Putin. I’m surprised he came out of his bunker, but not for long. When it comes to body doubles, this was probably the real one, because he looks a little scared.

From this Valdai meeting, we’ve seen two trends. On the one hand, Putin is trying to put on a brave face, saying they don’t care about the sanctions. But on the other hand, he admits that it has made his life more difficult.

That’s exactly what Trump wants, because he wants Putin to stop the war so he can get his money. And Putin says, “No, you stop the war, and then you’ll get the money.”

Trump would like to get the money today and forget about Ukraine. I find it interesting to watch how Putin is changing his approach, since the war isn’t going very well for him. Before this, the money would simply have been there for Donald Trump if he had handed over Ukraine.

But now Trump’s desire for money and Russia’s need to make money are starting to come to the fore. They’re hoping Ukraine will surrender. We’re talking about the backroom dealings between Trump and Putin, which are becoming increasingly obvious. They want to make money now.

Putin is waging war against civilians. This sends a message that Putin has abandoned attempts to seize Ukraine by peaceful means and is shifting to a more “Syrian-style” approach.

But Ukraine is not like the Syrian rebels; it has far more weapons and active allies. We need to do more than just help Ukraine hold out – we need to help Ukraine win. A Ukrainian victory is what will benefit all of us in the West.