How Vladimir Putin Intends to Recruit Trump to Russia's Side in WWIII - emptywheel

Back on February 22 — before Trump started a catastrophically stupid war in Iran — Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Beeb that Vladimir Putin had already started World War III, to which Beeb interviewer Jeremy Bowen tried unsuccessfully to get Zelenskyy to agree that handing over Donetsk would be a reasonable concession for peace.

Putin, Zelensky told me, has already started World War Three, and the only answer was intense military and economic pressure to force him to step back.

“I believe that Putin has already started it. The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him… Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves.”

What about Russia’s demand for Ukraine to hand over the 20% of the eastern region of Donetsk that it still holds – a line of towns Ukraine calls “fortress cities” – as well as more land in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia? Isn’t that, I asked, a reasonable request if it produces a ceasefire?

“I see this differently. I don’t look at it simply as land. I see it as abandonment – weakening our positions, abandoning hundreds of thousands of our people who live there. That is how I see it. And I am sure that this ‘withdrawal’ would divide our society.”

But isn’t it a good price to pay if that satisfies Putin? Do you think it would satisfy him?

“It would probably satisfy him for a while… he needs a pause… but once he recovers, our European partners say it could take three to five years. In my opinion, he could recover in no more than a couple of years. Where would he go next? We do not know, but that he would want to continue [the war] is a fact.”

Since that time, the following has happened:

• Trump launched an attack on Iran, based on advice from his badly conflicted Gaza-Ukraine-Middle East “negotiators” Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner that was itself based on wild misunderstanding of what Iran was offering.
• In response, Russia provided Iran with intelligence that helped them take out key communications facilities in the Gulf states, probably killing Benjamin Pennington in the process.
• Witkoff asked Russia and they denied helping Iran take out US-backed defenses of Gulf countries — “We can take them at their word,” Witkoff said. “Let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”
• Iran has established a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz and damaged the Gulf States’ critical infrastructure, creating a historic energy crisis.
• Between March 9 and 15, a sophisticated drone probe — believed to be beyond Iran’s capabilities — at Barksdale Air Force Base grounded the B-52s that were used in attacks on Iran (and would be used in any nuclear confrontation).
• Two missiles — attributed to Iran but denied by them — targeted Diego Garcia, 2,500 miles away from Iran
• Trump rewarded Russia for targeting US troops by easing sanctions on their oil.
• Trump rewarded Iran for killing US troops by easing sanctions on their oil.
• Trump claimed that Iran’s decision to let eight mostly Pakistani ships transit the Strait was instead a gift to him.
• Trump has repeatedly juiced markets with false claims that Iran is pursuing peace, all while preparing a 20,000-person land invasion of Iran which is more likely to escalate further than to get the Strait open; his transparent efforts to juice markets are having diminishing success.
• Due to the damage to US bases imposed with Russian help, US troops have significantly abandoned those bases; Iran has now accused the US of taking human shields and warned civilians to leave facilities hosting troops (including hotels) as those will be (and were in the first round) targeted.
• According to Politico, Kirill Dmitriev told Witkoff and Kushner Russia would cut off Iran if the US cut off Ukraine (though Dmitriev denies it).
• Russia provided drones and other critical supplies to Iran; which Israel (possibly acting alone) attempted to thwart by striking the Caspian based used in such supply.
• Kushner, whose epically terrible advice started this catastrophic war, described himself as a “volunteer” at an investor conference.
• Tulsi Gabbard laundered claims of Ukrainian assistance to Joe Biden via right wing pro-Russian propagandists, another attempt to frame Biden.
• The Congressperson that Dmitriev has long been recruiting, Anna Paulina Luna, hosted a number of sanctioned Russian Duma members for a “peace” conference.
• The US has told Ukraine any security guarantees would be contingent on Ukraine giving Russia the rest of Donetsk, effectively a step towards the quid pro quo that Dmitriev denies.

Trump has two options to get the Strait of Hormuz open, neither of which would restore the status quo from before Trump’s disastrous attack, if they work at all: to use the cover of other quasi-negotiations to capitulate on Russia’s terms, effectively losing the war to Iran for Russian assurances that Iran will keep the Strait open, or to send those 20,000 troops to conduct incredibly difficult operations with degraded local facilities.

I’m not saying that Trump has already decided to capitulate to Russia. Though it is the kind of neat solution — one that likely comes with financial benefits for his family and his developer buddy — that would allow Trump to go back to gaudying up more of the White House, his real passion. I’m saying that until Trump’s two insanely unqualified and conflicted “volunteer” negotiators are replaced with grown-ups, this will continue to be a real possibility.

Ukraine has been carrying on as if operating on Zelenskyy’s judgment that this is World War III, probably recognizing all the while that the US war on Iran makes any security guarantees Trump would offer, already paper-thin without ceding Donetsk, would be impossible deliver given the shortage of resources created by the Iran war. Zelenskyy has offered the Gulf States and, after the US had rejected such an offer last year, the US with expertise gained from defending against Iranian Shaheds used in Russia’s invasion. This morning Ukraine and the Saudis signed a security agreement that might offset US efforts to abandon Ukraine.

More spectacularly, after Trump rewarded Russia by lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil, Ukraine has been targeting Russia’s oil infrastructure in long-range strikes, resulting in the suspension of as much as 40% of Russia’s exports. All that, while Russia targets UNESCO heritage sites (in Lviv, close to the border with Poland) and maternity hospitals.

This may not, yet, be a world war, though it merits keeping the possibility in mind. But the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have been linked from the start, certainly in Putin’s mind.

And if that’s the case, then Trump has long been leaning towards joining on Russia’s side — the side killing US service members.

Update: Zelenskyy says that Russia was doing satellite reconnaissance for Iran before conducting a devastating strike on Prince Sultan Air Base, which injured at least a dozen Americans and took out at least five planes, including a AWACs.

Russia took satellite images of a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia three times in the days before Iran attacked the site and wounded American troops, according to a summary of Ukrainian intelligence shared with NBC News by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In an interview in the Gulf nation of Qatar on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he was “100%” confident Russia was sharing such intelligence with Iran to help target U.S. forces across the Middle East.

“I think that it’s in Russia’s interest to help Iranians. And I don’t believe — I know — that they share information,” he said. “Do they help Iranians? Of course. How many percent? One-hundred percent.”

During the interview, Zelenskyy shared a summary of the daily presidential briefing he receives from Ukraine’s spy agencies. The report stated that Russian satellites had taken images of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 20, March 23 and March 25.

On March 26, Iran attacked the base, which hosts U.S. forces as well as Saudi troops. The strike wounded a number of American service members, two U.S. officials said Friday, though none of the injuries were considered life-threatening.