The Trump-Putin love story’s next chapter: selling out Ukraine
Sidney Blumenthal
The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approval Fri 23 Oct 2026 11.00 BST
If Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/vladimir-putin[/url]), and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.
Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.
Though Chamberlain is judged as grievously misguided in history, Winston Churchill eulogized his “perfect sincerity according to his lights” and declared his mistaken gesture as rooted in the “noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart”.
Putin has proposed a meeting with Trump and Xi Jinping to settle the Ukraine war on Russian terms without the presence of the troublesome Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Wall Street Journal described such a meeting as “unprecedented”.
As a historical matter, that would be untrue. The Czechs were not present at Munich when their country was delivered to Hitler.
Part of Trump’s urgent reason for selling out Ukraine is to cast blame before the midterm elections for the inflation wrought by his tariffs and Iran war. Panicked by plunging polls, he has ramped up his rhetoric against Zelenskyy as the alleged source of the crisis that Trump himself has created.
Portraying Zelenskyy as the villain, Trump projects himself, as usual, as the victim. His perceived political need and irreducible pathological neediness dovetail with his longtime admiration of Putin as the unconstrained strongman he has always wished to be.
Since Trump’s first visit to Moscow in 1987, he has dreamed of the bonanza of Russian deals to be lavished on him from Putin. Upon his return, he paid for full-page ads ([url]https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ilanbenmeir/that-time-trump-spent-nearly-100000-on-an-ad-criticizing-us[/url]) in major newspapers calling for the US to stop funding ([url]https://apnews.com/article/05133dbe63ace98766527ec7d16ede08[/url]) the defense of countries capable of defending themselves and to cease defending the flow of oil through the Gulf. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” the ad said.
From the start, the ideology has been a token of his greed, decades before he hawked his “America First Collection” of digital tokens . Putin has been the unwavering object of his aspiration, one of the few people he has not betrayed or sought to humiliate, but to whom he bends his knee.
“Together,” tweeted ([url]https://x.com/theinformant_x/status/2111469184085356847/photo/1[/url]) Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, over a graphic showing the Russian bear and the American eagle on the same side poised to fight against the British lion and a shattered European Union flag. He was celebrating on 16 October what he conceived as the new axis against the western allies the same day that Trump waived sanctions against Russia under the Lindsey Graham Act.
Graham, who died in Washington just hours upon returning from a visit of support to Ukraine, was hailed as Trump’s closest friend in the Congress, which passed the bill overwhelmingly, Democrats and Republicans in rare unity.
Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, whom Trump imposed on the South Carolina governor to be appointed as the martyr’s replacement, was prominently made the marquee sponsor, lending the novice senator a credential. In a Republican primary debate, she said ([url]https://apnews.com/article/darline-graham-taiwan-debate-national-security-5b045abd68cc4aa350177b5d1c6ee650):[/url] “National security is not my thing.”
When Trump tossed aside the Graham Act without bothering to consult her, she was left to sputter an ineffectual objection, leaving her vulnerable in an unexpectedly close race. Her prospect and dignity were shards of Trump’s collateral damage.
Trump vehemently blamed ([url]https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/10/trump-zelenskyy-russia-ukraine-01115841[/url]) Zelenskyy for supposedly prolonging the war, called him ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrey51jrgnro[/url]) “not a good guy for us to deal with”, and said that the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries were a “disgrace ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c58jz174w89ro)”[/url] and had “better damn well stop ([url]https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/10/trump-zelenskyy-russia-ukraine-01115841)”[/url], and that Ukraine needed a “new leader who can make a deal”.
After an hour-and-a-half phone call with Putin on his 74th birthday, so friendly that neither wanted to hang up the phone first, according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s aide ([url]https://www.reuters.com/world/neither-putin-nor-trump-wanted-hang-up-first-kremlin-aide-says-after-very-2026-10-10/[/url]), Trump announced his sweetheart deal for 300,000 metric tons of diesel from Russia ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/17/trump-puts-new-russia-sanctions-passed-by-congress-on-hold-amid-deepening-row-with-ukraine[/url]), followed in November by 500,000 and an additional million. For this, Trump waived sanctions.
The stunt gives Putin hard cash to continue operating his war machine, while the diesel will be statistically insignificant to the price (
) in the US market. The US consumes 300,000 tons within 14 hours. Zelenskyy called ([url]https://www.facebook.com/reel/2180554445830800[/url]) this a “happy birthday gift to Putin”. The effect of Trump’s transaction could not help struggling American consumers, but is a practical help to sustain Putin’s aggression.
Trump’s giveaway was followed by the sudden restriction ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckz65g34wyd8o[/url]) of Ukrainian access to the Starshield network, managed by Elon Musk for the Pentagon, that is indispensable to Ukraine’s defense. For a week, in an Abbott and Costello routine of “who’s on first”, Musk blamed the Pentagon, while Trump claimed to be out of the loop. “It wasn’t me and I don’t think it was Elon,” he said.
Ukraine’s frontline communications were immediately degraded. The outage directly preceded barrages of Russian missile strikes that knocked out energy infrastructure and left 600,000 Ukrainians without power. Slowly, after outraged reaction from the Europeans and Congress, connectivity ([url]https://kyivindependent.com/breaking-starlink-service-in-ukraine-restored-defense-ministry-source-says/[/url]) was mostly but not completely restored.
Musk, whose businesses are dependent on federal contracts, is the largest donor ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/13/elon-musk-political-donor-midterm-elections[/url]) to the Republican campaigns in the midterm elections, spending $366m so far, exceeding the $276m he spent to elect Trump in 2024.
The diesel deal was a successful ploy as part of Putin’s larger scheme to leverage Russian energy assets as bait to Trump in order to end US support for Ukraine. In early September, Putin pitched ([url]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/us/politics/kushner-witkoff-russia-oil-deal.html[/url]) Trump’s self-interested envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, on the vast international assets of Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil company, requiring a treasury department waiver, thereby opening the door for a host of shadow agreements.
The Abu Dhabi royal family and the Qatari Al-Khayyat brothers would hold a large part of the equity, the New York Times ([url]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/us/politics/kushner-witkoff-russia-oil-deal.html[/url]) reported. The Qatari investors are simultaneously partnered with Kushner on his luxury real estate project in Albania, which has provoked a popular uprising called “the Flamingo revolution”.
Sidney Blumenthal
The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approval Fri 23 Oct 2026 11.00 BST
If Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/vladimir-putin[/url]), and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.
Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.
Though Chamberlain is judged as grievously misguided in history, Winston Churchill eulogized his “perfect sincerity according to his lights” and declared his mistaken gesture as rooted in the “noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart”.
Putin has proposed a meeting with Trump and Xi Jinping to settle the Ukraine war on Russian terms without the presence of the troublesome Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Wall Street Journal described such a meeting as “unprecedented”.
As a historical matter, that would be untrue. The Czechs were not present at Munich when their country was delivered to Hitler.
Part of Trump’s urgent reason for selling out Ukraine is to cast blame before the midterm elections for the inflation wrought by his tariffs and Iran war. Panicked by plunging polls, he has ramped up his rhetoric against Zelenskyy as the alleged source of the crisis that Trump himself has created.
Portraying Zelenskyy as the villain, Trump projects himself, as usual, as the victim. His perceived political need and irreducible pathological neediness dovetail with his longtime admiration of Putin as the unconstrained strongman he has always wished to be.
Since Trump’s first visit to Moscow in 1987, he has dreamed of the bonanza of Russian deals to be lavished on him from Putin. Upon his return, he paid for full-page ads ([url]https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ilanbenmeir/that-time-trump-spent-nearly-100000-on-an-ad-criticizing-us[/url]) in major newspapers calling for the US to stop funding ([url]https://apnews.com/article/05133dbe63ace98766527ec7d16ede08[/url]) the defense of countries capable of defending themselves and to cease defending the flow of oil through the Gulf. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” the ad said.
From the start, the ideology has been a token of his greed, decades before he hawked his “America First Collection” of digital tokens . Putin has been the unwavering object of his aspiration, one of the few people he has not betrayed or sought to humiliate, but to whom he bends his knee.
“Together,” tweeted ([url]https://x.com/theinformant_x/status/2111469184085356847/photo/1[/url]) Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, over a graphic showing the Russian bear and the American eagle on the same side poised to fight against the British lion and a shattered European Union flag. He was celebrating on 16 October what he conceived as the new axis against the western allies the same day that Trump waived sanctions against Russia under the Lindsey Graham Act.
Graham, who died in Washington just hours upon returning from a visit of support to Ukraine, was hailed as Trump’s closest friend in the Congress, which passed the bill overwhelmingly, Democrats and Republicans in rare unity.
Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, whom Trump imposed on the South Carolina governor to be appointed as the martyr’s replacement, was prominently made the marquee sponsor, lending the novice senator a credential. In a Republican primary debate, she said ([url]https://apnews.com/article/darline-graham-taiwan-debate-national-security-5b045abd68cc4aa350177b5d1c6ee650):[/url] “National security is not my thing.”
When Trump tossed aside the Graham Act without bothering to consult her, she was left to sputter an ineffectual objection, leaving her vulnerable in an unexpectedly close race. Her prospect and dignity were shards of Trump’s collateral damage.
Trump vehemently blamed ([url]https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/10/trump-zelenskyy-russia-ukraine-01115841[/url]) Zelenskyy for supposedly prolonging the war, called him ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrey51jrgnro[/url]) “not a good guy for us to deal with”, and said that the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries were a “disgrace ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c58jz174w89ro)”[/url] and had “better damn well stop ([url]https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/10/trump-zelenskyy-russia-ukraine-01115841)”[/url], and that Ukraine needed a “new leader who can make a deal”.
After an hour-and-a-half phone call with Putin on his 74th birthday, so friendly that neither wanted to hang up the phone first, according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s aide ([url]https://www.reuters.com/world/neither-putin-nor-trump-wanted-hang-up-first-kremlin-aide-says-after-very-2026-10-10/[/url]), Trump announced his sweetheart deal for 300,000 metric tons of diesel from Russia ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/17/trump-puts-new-russia-sanctions-passed-by-congress-on-hold-amid-deepening-row-with-ukraine[/url]), followed in November by 500,000 and an additional million. For this, Trump waived sanctions.
The stunt gives Putin hard cash to continue operating his war machine, while the diesel will be statistically insignificant to the price (
Trump’s giveaway was followed by the sudden restriction ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckz65g34wyd8o[/url]) of Ukrainian access to the Starshield network, managed by Elon Musk for the Pentagon, that is indispensable to Ukraine’s defense. For a week, in an Abbott and Costello routine of “who’s on first”, Musk blamed the Pentagon, while Trump claimed to be out of the loop. “It wasn’t me and I don’t think it was Elon,” he said.
Ukraine’s frontline communications were immediately degraded. The outage directly preceded barrages of Russian missile strikes that knocked out energy infrastructure and left 600,000 Ukrainians without power. Slowly, after outraged reaction from the Europeans and Congress, connectivity ([url]https://kyivindependent.com/breaking-starlink-service-in-ukraine-restored-defense-ministry-source-says/[/url]) was mostly but not completely restored.
Musk, whose businesses are dependent on federal contracts, is the largest donor ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/13/elon-musk-political-donor-midterm-elections[/url]) to the Republican campaigns in the midterm elections, spending $366m so far, exceeding the $276m he spent to elect Trump in 2024.
The diesel deal was a successful ploy as part of Putin’s larger scheme to leverage Russian energy assets as bait to Trump in order to end US support for Ukraine. In early September, Putin pitched ([url]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/us/politics/kushner-witkoff-russia-oil-deal.html[/url]) Trump’s self-interested envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, on the vast international assets of Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil company, requiring a treasury department waiver, thereby opening the door for a host of shadow agreements.
The Abu Dhabi royal family and the Qatari Al-Khayyat brothers would hold a large part of the equity, the New York Times ([url]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/us/politics/kushner-witkoff-russia-oil-deal.html[/url]) reported. The Qatari investors are simultaneously partnered with Kushner on his luxury real estate project in Albania, which has provoked a popular uprising called “the Flamingo revolution”.
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