Four weeks after signing into law new sanctions on Russia, Donald Trump has stunned even some of his own Republican colleagues.
The US president has given his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, his biggest economic and propaganda victory since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Even Putin, a man who built his career understanding the psychology of people so he could recruit them to spy for the KGB, must have been stunned by this Trump about-turn.
It was only in September that Trump signed new sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, which were championed by the late senator Lindsey Graham and named in his honor.
Now he’s done a deal with Putin for Russia to supply diesel to the “American and global marketplace.”
The diesel deal undercuts US efforts to create enough economic pain to force Putin to end the war.
After all, if Ukraine unilaterally decided to put down its guns now, it would lose the one-fifth of land the Russians have taken and risk losing the entire country. But if Russia were to put down its weapons, the war would stop.
Trump has done this deal for base political reasons; the high cost of diesel, largely due to the war in Iran, is one reason Republicans are battling to retain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate at the midterm elections.
“We have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine,” Trump said this week. “We’ve got nothing back other than high diesel.”
Leading Republicans and Democrats argue that it’s not about Washington “getting nothing back,” rather, they argue, if Putin is allowed to conquer Ukraine he will be rewarded for an illegal invasion and may then turn his focus to other countries in Europe.
“It’s unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day,” Republican senator Thom Tillis said.
Trump is sending other signals that he has decided to embrace Russia.
He has said he was interested in Moscow’s proposal for a summit between the US, China and Russia. Apart from elevating Putin, it would involve discussion about a war with one side — the country that has been attacked not in the room.
Then came the description this week of Putin by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Ukraine war negotiator, as a “humanitarian,” following Russia’s release of an American it had held in prison for four years. For the families of the thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed by Putin’s missiles, that word would be difficult to digest.
Another revelation in recent days was that either Elon Musk or the White House had ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine.
When President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said people could die because of the change, Musk placed the blame with Trump.
“Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately Potus,” he wrote on X.
Trump retorted that he didn’t know who was responsible, but he would “like to find out.”
The Wall Street Journal found out for him, reporting this week it was Musk who had limited Ukraine’s access to signals which help it to fight the war.
Some US officials, cited by the newspaper, said Musk acted “unilaterally” and Trump “didn’t specifically order any retribution against Ukraine”. But one person familiar with the situation, the paper reported, said “Musk talked to multiple senior administration officials, including with Trump, before imposing the new speed cap.”
Even if it was Musk’s decision, he obviously felt confident enough that Trump, with whom he appears to be back in regular contact, would not have a problem with the decision.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, told CNN it would be impossible for Musk to change a military-grade version of Starlink without the US military knowing.
“Ukraine is the victim here, Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is our ally,” he said, describing the situation as “heartbreaking.”
For Putin, this is a huge victory. Regardless of who ordered the downgrading, Ukraine was being weakened.
Trump is delivering for Putin a festival of propaganda. Along with his big new diesel deal with the US, Putin can announce to Russians that Trump is considering a three-way summit with him and China’s president, Xi Jinping.
Putin could not be scripting this better.
But for young Russians who have had to endure the horror of one of the world’s longest frontlines, these days are grim.
Actual numbers are not available, but Russian casualties, including deaths, injuries and those missing, are widely believed to be as high as 1 million.
Putin, a man trained by the KGB to play mind games, seems to have Trump exactly where he wants him.
Those mind games began immediately upon Trump’s second term. Two days after Trump was re-elected, Russia’s most-watched television network carried reports “welcoming” Trump back to the White House, complete with a series of naked photographs of Melania Trump.
Nothing sensitive appears on the Russia 1 Channel that Putin or his enforcers do not want. The montage of nude photographs, while presenters were reading words of congratulations, was the sort of thing a Mafia boss would do: speaking kind words while at the same time showing images that suggested a certain menace or humiliation.
That apparent warning shot was the latest in the psychodrama that Putin has had with four other US presidents: Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Each president entered the Oval Office hoping to be able to form a good relationship with Putin, to tame what they saw as the potentially dangerous Russian bear. But each ended up bitterly disappointed with the reality of their dealings with Putin.
With Trump, Putin surely must have realized that few world leaders were as obviously open to flattery as the US president, which would make the task of someone wanting to win him over so much easier.
Trump’s style has long appealed to Putin. Stephen Hadley, US national security adviser for four years from 2005, told PBS Frontline that Putin saw Trump as having a “penchant for authoritarianism” and “a backing off of human rights.”
“What’s not to like if you’re Vladimir Putin? It sort of sounds like he’s one of us,” Hadley said.
Trump wants Ukraine to agree that Russia keeps the current land it has taken since 2022. Zelenskyy has agreed to that, saying he would consider agreeing to a ceasefire based on the current frontline being frozen.
But Russia wants more. It wants the entire Donbas area.
Based on all the available evidence, it would appear that Putin has outmanoeuvred yet another US president.
