The Russian economist Elena Panina, a former State Duma deputy who now is the director of the Institute of International Political and Economic Strategies and Vice-President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, on June 17 published a commentary on the editorial of the June 13, 2025 issue of EIR magazine, which pointed to the British geopolitical trap being set to torpedo the Trump-Putin dialogue seeking cooperation between the two countries. Issued on Panina’s Telegram account, the article has been republished by newspapers and websites, including in Crimea and two in St. Petersburg, where many leading Russians are currently gathered for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Panina herself moderated one of the panels on the opening day, June 18.
The article by Panina, who is on the U.S. sanctions list, is headlined “Lyndon LaRouche Movement (U.S.A.): Will Trump and Putin unite against a common enemy?” and begins by quoting EIR’s editorial: “‘Whoever prepared, trained, and gave the final green light for Kiev’s drone operation [on June 1 against Russia’s strategic aviation] was itching to unleash a nuclear-strategic conflict between the world’s two greatest nuclear weapons superpowers,’ according to an editorial in Executive Intelligence Review, an anti-globalist publication by followers of American politician and economist Lyndon LaRouche.”
Panina had earlier reported very favorably on the remarks delivered by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche to the Oct. 3, 2024 BRICS conference in Lima, Peru, “Development Strategies and Mechanisms for Cooperation in the Multipolar World.”
Panina notes that the author of the EIR editorial, Dennis Small, “back in April, warned that a ‘decapitating’ strike on Iran would be a British trap for Trump. The strike did take place, albeit not by the hands of the U.S.—but now, according to the plans of its architects, Trump must involve the American army in this adventure, which is suicidal for his political future.”
Significantly, Panina further cites the editorial’s reference to Lyndon LaRouche’s earlier analysis: “The author then draws parallels with 9/11—that terrorist attack on the U.S. was regarded in circles whose opinion was represented by Mr. LaRouche as a coup d'état in Washington, combined with an attempt to unleash a strategic nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Russia. And although an immediate telephone conversation between Putin and Bush thwarted that attempt, ‘its perpetrators … are still lurking within high-ranking positions … and are still poised to strike, menacing the U.S. government and President,’ LaRouche wrote in December 2001. And now, 24 years later, the same forces are once again ready to strike, Small warns.”
Panina concludes: “This view is, of course, very conspirological—but not entirely without foundation. Especially against the backdrop of Israel’s attack on Iran, which, for obvious reasons, is not mentioned in Small’s article of June 13. And the latest flip-flops of Trump, who is being driven into a corner.”
