Anne Applebaum: ‘Russia’s goal in Ukraine was to demonstrate that old laws and conventions no longer work’

American journalist, researcher, and Pulitzer Prize laureate Anne Applebaum took part in the Lviv Media Forum 2025 conference in Ukraine. She spoke about democracy and the threats looming over the democratic world, as well as the role of the media in times when the world is facing the challenges of imperialism.

“One of the goals of the outbreak of the full-scale invasion in 2022 was to demonstrate that the Russians do not care about the laws of war,” Applebaum said. “They wanted to show that they disregard laws and conventions on genocide. They do not care about the laws protecting children’s rights. They want to prove that these laws don’t matter. From the outset, their goal was to demonstrate that the international system is ineffective and incapable of holding them accountable.”

Applebaum noted that the Trump administration started to adopt a similar model of governance and is trying to show the world that the old laws are no longer working.

“I’m not sure Trump planned his actions in the same way or not, but there are definitely people around him who did, and they recognize that his actions serve as a demonstration of ineffectiveness of laws. In the next six months, we’ll see whether it succeeds or not,” she said.

Applebaum noted that Trump does not understand the consequences of the war in Ukraine — he has no strategy for the future.

“Trump believes in the idea of a ceasefire. If the shelling stops, the war will end. He doesn’t think that Russia may invade Ukraine again in a few years, so in his perspective, Ukraine doesn’t need any security guarantee. He doesn’t want to think about how to secure lasting peace. For Trump, it’s about winning the moment, not what happened before, and not what will happen after,” Applebaum explained.

She also emphasized that Putin and Trump have a similar tactic: they distort reality and make people believe in it. According to Applebaum, Trump didn’t have a definite political plan for this, but from his own experience in the world of celebrities, he understood that it was possible to create a false image of himself, and this image can be beneficial to him in different situations.

“What I mean is, for instance, the idea that he’s a great dealmaker. There were times when he was likely rescued by Russian money. In reality, he was never truly a successful businessman, but by crafting the image of one, he was able to make money. He was distorting reality,” Applebaum said.

The journalist noticed that the strategy of distorting reality was successful, and many people started believing social media and television more than objective reality. Applebaum mentioned being struck by Trump’s election campaign: “I can no longer tell which reality is more powerful for most people — the real one or the online one.”

According to Applebaum, this happened because of the rapid decline in trust in the media, particularly as a result of bias and dependence on funding from undisclosed private sources in some popular American media outlets. She also pointed out that many people do not realize the true role of the media in society.

Applebaum is currently in Ukraine for the ninth time since February 2022. She returns repeatedly, she says, because she is inspired by the resilience and creativity of the Ukrainian people.

“I am lucky to know volunteers and people from the defense technology sphere who are working and continue to serve others despite the stress of the war. They’ve managed to keep going. At the moment, there’s hardly any other country in the world that puts as much effort into self-defense, mutual support, and caring for its veterans. Impressive!”

Before, Applebaum expressed her idea that foreigners should not interfere in the ways Ukraine conducts its war against Russia or demand territorial concessions for the sake of peace.

Applebaum also analyzed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of history and the continuity of Ukraine’s striving for democracy.

Anne Applebaum is an American journalist for The Atlantic, a lecturer at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of numerous books, including “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism,” “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine,” “Gulag: A History,” “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe,” and others. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the Duff Cooper Prize for her book “Gulag: A History.”

The NGO Lviv Media Forum strengthens media, institutions, and public figures capable of fostering healthy public dialogue in Ukraine and beyond. Our goal is an effective and democratic society united by healthy communication. The organization was founded in 2013 to bring together media professionals from Ukraine and around the world in Lviv for the annual LMF conference.

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Images: Chytomo, Lviv Media Forum

Copy editing: Ben Angel