The Putin Trump alliance advances towards mutual goals:

Ukraine for Putin, Nobel Prize for Trump

left: Trump rolls out the red carpet for war criminal Putin; right, Trump appears tired while Putin celebrates after his successful meeting.

On August 15, the two most powerful ethno-nationalist, racist, homophobic, and sexist leaders in the world – Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin – met to discuss the immediate next steps that can be taken in dividing up parts of the world between them. In particular, they discussed how to carve up Ukraine a little further. They were trying to figure out how to helpTrump make further concessions to Putin, while at the same time, helping him try to cover his tracks so that he could pretend that he, and also Putin, were simply discussing how “peace” could be achieved. A background subtext was Trump’s campaign to win a Nobel peace prize. This is not simply a vanity project for Trump the narcissist. If he can get a Nobel, it would enormously strengthen him at home and abroad. He would also make mega bucks off of it. And since he is Putin‘s most important ally, that would also benefit the Russian president. What unites them is a common political objective – ethno-nationalism, etc.- plus an agreement that he and Putin should be able to carve up the world into what used to be called “spheres of influence“, with Putin, dominating Eurasia and most of Europe, and Trump dominating the Atlantic from Britain to Greenland to all of the Americas. Later to be brought into the deal will be Xi Jin Peng, to whom Asia will be ceded.

Trump showed his true colors – alliance with Putin – with this social media post.

Cease fire
Just a few days earlier, in order to please finance capital in the United States, Trump had called for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine. But Putin was not ready for that since his troops were still making small, although incremental, advances in Donetsk, which is a part of the larger Donbas area in general. Trump threatened stronger sanctions against Russia if Putin did not agree to a cease-fire, but coming out of the meeting that call was completely dropped with no explanation whatsoever. Instead, what came out of the meeting was a confirmation for a “land swap”. That means that Ukraine will give up the part of Donetsk which it still military controls, and Russia will give up a small sliver of land that it’s still military controls.

“Land Swap”
The military background to this joint Putin Trump proposal is the following: Russia has been struggling mightily for well over a year now to conquer all of Donetsk. That struggle has come at enormous economic cost to Russia, as well as tens of thousands of Russian casualties, and they still have made only incremental gains. That is despite the fact that they have yet to attack the main defensive position that Ukraine has established somewhat to the west of the present battle lines. The institute for the Study of War (ISW), which is probably the foremost observer and reporter on what is happening in this war as well as others, made that clear in a detailed report on August 17. They summarized the situation as follows:

Putin, with Trump’s support, wants the rest of Donetsk to be ceded to him. Together with Luhansk, these two Oblasts compose Donbas.

“None of these months long efforts to take Kupyansk, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk have been at the scale needed to seize all of Ukraine‘s Fortress belt – Ukraine’s highly fortified, main defensive line in Donetsk Oblast that consist of cities that are significantly larger in terms of size and population Russian efforts to seize the rest of Donetsk Oblast by force would take several years, given the number of fortified urban areas Russian forces must overcome to reach the Donetsk Oblast administrative boundaries.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board, which in general has been very supportive of Trump recently, put the matter more succinctly. They wrote that Putin “wants Donetsk because he would gain at the negotiating table what he hasn’t been able to conquer on the battlefield. It would also make it easier to take more territory when he or his successor think the time is right to strike again.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board concludes about the Trump Putin meeting: “no wonder Russian commentators and Putin allies were celebrating the summit results. Their president ended his isolation in the west, made no public concessions, and can continue killing Ukrainians without further sanction.” they also warned Trump “a defeat for Ukraine will echo at home and across the world for the rest of his presidency.” They concluded their editorial by denouncing the concept of “peace in our time”. This was a reference to the claim that then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said upon his return from the Munich conference in 1938 that he had with Hitler. He reached some sort of agreement and came home and said it would mean “peace in our time”. That statement is generally viewed as capitulation to Hitler. CNN also commented “it would be politically toxic for Ukraine‘s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order tens of thousands of civilians and troops to voluntarily leave the donuts region. Many could refuse.” in other words, Zelenskyy would face a rebellion on his hands.

Reaction in Europe
The European media was equally critical. The Financial Times quoted an unnamed Ukrainian official as saying “this is a stab in the back.” The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine called the result “a priceless gift from Trump.” And of course the Kiev Independent commented that the meeting was “Sickening. Shameful. And in the end useless…. Trump failed to grasp that Putin isn’t transactional about Ukraine. – he is messianic. He wants Ukraine for Russia, period. For Putin and His Inner Circle, Ukraine’s independence is an accident, and they are correcting it.”

Trump meets with Zelenskyy and European leaders. He couldn’t get away with the unparalleled level of hostility that he’d shown when he met with Zelensky alone.

Trump meets with Zelenskyy and European leaders
Two days later, Trump met with his nemesis, Zelenskyy, who this time brought back-up in the form of different European leaders. The Financial Times reported, “Donald Trump has held out the prospect of US security guarantees and the trilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war in Ukraine.” Trump talked a lot about “peace“ and the Financial Times reported “asked if peace could involve US troops on the ground in Ukraine, Trump said he would potentially answer that question later in the day.”

Afraid of having new tariffs imposed on their countries, the different European leaders who were at that meeting, came out of it with praise for the Putin ally, Donald Trump. Again, according to the Financial Times, Britis” Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the meeting a “historic step“ forward for European security. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Miloni praised Trump for his efforts to bring Russia to the negotiating table. German chancellor Friedrik Merz, whose country is closer to the front line with Russia, was a little bit more reserved. He said “now the path is opened. You(meaning Trump.) opened it last Friday, but now the way is open for complicated negotiations.” And NATO general secretary, Mark Rutte, thanked Trump for his leadership and what he has (supposedly) done for Zelinsky and Europe Rutte also praised Trump for his willingness to provide security guarantees, which Rutte called a “big step“. Zelinskyy himself said that Trump’s talk about security guarantees were “very good”.

Trump blames Ukraine for continuing the war. When Putin resumes the attack after any peace deal, Trump will blame Ukraine again.

Predictably, within two days, Trump was already waffling about the security guarantees, which were always very vague, and by Tuesday he had ruled out US forces in Ukraine. This came after Trump‘s phone discussions with his ally, Putin.

So, in other words, aside from Zelenskyy, none of the European leaders ruled out the possibility of a so-called land swap. The Ukrainian people themselves, especially those living in Donetsk, might have some different feelings.

The view in Donetsk
The New York Times had an article in which they quoted several residents of the Donetskarea who had recently fled that area because of the fighting. They quoted a sixty-year-old woman, Valentina Shevchenko, who said “this is insane. Here there is war, rivers of blood, and they are making some kind of deal…. This is our land. Not an inch of it can be given away. Give [Putin] just a slice and he’ll say ‘I want Kharkiv, I’ll take the Zaporizhzhia region.’ He wants all of Ukraine and won’t stop. We must not agree. We will fight to the end, because we are Ukrainians. That’s the only way. We have no other choice.’”

Another refugee from the fighting said “that’s where my childhood was, that’s where my school is. I don’t want to leave. Everything is still there – my mother’s photos, my brother’s photos the old ones from the 1980s with my mother young and beautiful.“

Capitalist diplomacy
But since when have the views of ordinary people ever mattered in the world of bourgeois diplomacy? All these capitalist leaders are getting tired of the war, and are looking for an easy way out. For the Europeans, they are simply looking for reassurance that once Putin consolidates what he now has that he will not go further, meaning attacked their countries. Even old line cold warrior and supporter of the US invasion of Iraq, the influential New York Times columnist Sam Friedman, speaking on CNN on Monday, called for a cease-fire based on the current battle lines. Such a cease-fire would inevitably mean that the battle lines were frozen where they currently are, which means that Putin would be allowed to consolidate the territory that he has now seized.

Overall, this is a continuation of the lukewarm support for Ukraine from when the invasions first began. In 2014, when Russia first invaded Donetsk and Luhansk and also seized Crimea, little or nothing was done. Then, in 2022 when the all out invasion started Joe Biden‘s first advice to Zelinskyy was that he flee the country. In other words accept Russia’s total annexation of all of Ukraine. When that invasion stalled, and the fightback developed, Biden infamously sent arms to Ukraine drip by drip. It was always a matter of too little too late. Now, they all believe that the invasion cannot be reversed from where it stands at present.

A more balanced assessment came from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on August 18. On the one hand, they reported “Russian officials largely rejected Europe’s proposed security guarantees for Ukraine in a potential peace agreement.” That means that Trump will completely abandon any calls for security guarantees. It is entirely to be expected. But the. ISW Also offered some very significant assessments. “Russian budgetary constraints are forcing Russia to employ alternative mechanisms to fund enlistment bonus payments, and recruit, recruit soldiers for his war in Ukraine,“ they reported. The ISW further reported that “contract recruitment fell to a two year low in the second quarter of 20 25…. Russia’s finite, national wealth is unable to sustain long-term recruitment efforts indefinitely without cutting into other government programs. Increase financial challenges will likely degrade Russia’s overall force generation apparatus. Additional western sanctions targeting Russian oil revenues will likely exacerbate greater economic challenges that can degrade Russia’s long-term ability to continuous war in Ukraine.“

The ISW also report that Russian budgetary constraints will start to be felt not just in the outlying provinces, but within the heartland of Russia itself. It seems likely that that will mean that a questioning of the war will develop amongst the Russian people. But that will only happen if Trump does not ride to the rescue of his ally Putin once again. In doing so he will need the cooperation of Putin, his willingness to pretend to back off from the demand of all of Donbas, at least for now in order to reach a temporary peace deal. The European leaders might express a little bit of skepticism, but in the main they would be overflowing with praise for the peacemaker Donald Trump, and would support a Nobel peace prize for him. Again, as I said, this is not just a matter of flattering Trump‘s ego; a Nobel prize would enormously boost Trump’s prestige and power at home and abroad. Trump will use that to swell his own financial coffers by many millions of dollars.

Ukraine’ Future
As for the future of Ukraine, a temporary peace, deal would be exactly that – temporary. In fact, it is hard to see how fighting would not continue within the portions of Ukraine that Russia has seized. If the fighting is not by official Ukrainian troops, then it is hard to see how different partisan groups would not continue a war within those regions, especially since Russia would use any sort of decrease of military hostilities to send increased numbers of Russian settlers into those regions. Then, at some point that Putin deems advantageous, he would declare that Ukraine has broken the peace deal, and he would renew the military advance. Trump would agree with him.

When he first raised it, everybody thought Trump getting a Nobel Peace Prize was a fantasy. (We never did.) Now, it doesn’t seem so impossible. If Trump can arrange a weak and temporary “peace” deal in Ukraine, he will be putting tariff pressure on every European leader to demand he get that prize, and most of them will capitulate.

Degeneration of capitalist politics
The actual possibility of Trump winning a Nobel peace prize shows the utter degeneration of capitalist politics since the last war criminal, Henry Kissinger, got that prize back in 1973. It’s true that Kissinger was also a war criminal, but at least he was an intelligent one with a serious world view, whereas Trump is simply a narcissistic buffoon. That degeneration of capital politics can be explained by two factors: the first is the mountain crisis of global capitalism. That crisis has meant that every capitalist government, and every leading capitalist politician, is simply looking out for themselves rather than looking out for the interest of their system in general. That is why so many capitalist institutions have capitulated to Trump, including major capitalist law firms, major US universities, the entire Republican Party, leadership, and the European Union.

The other major factor is the crisis in the working class,the world over, including the working class here in the United States. This means that there is no working class force to stand up to fascist-connected leaders like Trump. Flowing from, and also adding to, that crisis in the working class has been the absolute collapse of any working class socialist movement. In the United States, the majority of the so-called socialist movement apologizes for and in some cases allies with with Trump‘s mentor/puppeteer and close ally Putin. We saw that last year when nearly all socialist groups in effect campaign for Trump by devoting their energies to denouncing the Democrats. We see that at the present by the failure of these so-called socialist to denounce this meeting of the world two most powerful fascist connected leaders, Trump and Putin. In fact, some of them were actually positive about that meeting. Enormous shocks are required to shake up the working class and start to develop a new independent working class movement, which would then lay the basis for the possibility of developing a working class based socialist movement. 

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left: Trump rolls out the red carpet for war criminal Putin; right, Trump appears tired while Putin celebrates after his successful meeting