The spring and summer of 2020 will likely be the most perilous spell in Ukraine’s short history as an independent state and an even shorter one as a nascent liberal democracy. That’s because the months before the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential elections will be the most auspicious time for Vladimir Putin to advance his plans to weaken, isolate and subjugate Ukraine.
The alliance between Putin and Trump ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was either formal or informal. Given the wealth of direct interactions and indirect links between the two, their cooperation to subvert the American electoral system is a certainty. We don’t know yet how closely they worked, but the truth will eventually come out.
At the beginning, their unholy alliance couldn’t have had anything but very modest goals. For Trump, it was going to be a massive publicity stunt, and for Putin a chance to troll the self-important American democracy and to make the hated Hillary Clinton sweat.
But the partnership scored a stunning win, much to the surprise of both parties. First came the Republican nomination, then the victory in November. In the Kremlin they probably experienced the same emotion the Greeks had when Odysseus emerged from the Wooden Horse to unlock the gates of Troy — great joy mixed with even greater surprise.
Not so fast, though. No sooner had Trump invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to celebrate at the Oval Office, special counsel Robert Mueller came knocking on his door. But the feared fall from grace never came. Thanks to the weak-kneed special prosecutor and some clever legerdemain by Bill Barr, the replacement attorney general, Trump managed to beat the rap. Mueller declared that conspiracy with Russia could not be proven because Trump had obstructed his investigation — and Barr barred Mueller from charging that particular president with obstruction.
While the Mueller saga went on, Trump the Russian agent was next to useless. A few minor favors such as the weakening of the NATO alliance, surrendering the Middle East and undermining the European Union — aside from making America hated, ridiculed and mistrusted around the world—was all that Putin got.
Just as the dust from the Mueller investigation began to settle, Trump managed to get himself caught blackmailing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — while his personal lawyer and “America’s mayor” Rudy Giuliani was trying to clear Russia of interfering in the US election on Trump’s behalf by finding “evidence” that it had been Ukraine that interfered — on Hillary’s.
And so another six months were wasted as far as Putin was concerned. But Trump’s impeachment unexpectedly turned into a great blessing for Moscow. Not only did their man get off scot-free but he emerged unchained. Not a week had passed after his acquittal before he visited revenge upon those who testified at his trial in Congress and interfered into the sentencing of his co-conspirator Roger Stone. Additionally, Barr is now opening an investigation based on Rudy’s looney discoveries in Ukraine.
It was said only two weeks ago that a sham acquittal in a Senate trial without witnesses would not exonerate Trump. In reality, it worked out much better. By making them complicit in this travesty of justice Trump tied Republican Senators inexorably to himself, in a true mafia style. In for a penny in for a pound. From now on the majority of the US Senate will not be able to object to anything Trump does without admitting their own cowardice, stupidity and venality.
Sad though it may be, this is America’s problem. With Putin’s help or not, the American people made this bed and they will have to sleep in it. But this situation has important implications for Putin and, by extension, for Ukraine.
The Putin-Trump partnership can finally take wing. As Trump becomes an American Putin and becomes unchained, Putin’s hold on Trump inevitably weakens. Whatever kompromat Putin has on Trump, be that the infamous pee tape or even evidence of outright treason, it is no longer very effective. The Senate, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court will have no choice but to cover for him. Trump has got them all by a vulnerable part of their anatomy.
And so Putin’s quandary is as follows: he will have to help Trump get elected again, but if Trump wins a second term, no kompromat on him will matter in the least and Putin will lose his hold.
Worse, Putin knows that he, like almost everyone else, had badly underestimated Trump. He had thought Trump an imbecile and pustobrekh, a Russian word that roughly translates as a baloney artist. The danger for Putin is that in his second term the unpredictable Trump may turn on him — and Trump always does on people to whom he owes favors.
This means that Putin has a very short window of opportunity to strike at Ukraine while he still has some hold on Trump and can be useful to him again in the run-up to the November election.
Things have been happening in Russia since the wave of protests against the rigged local elections shook the country last year. The government has been changed and the ineffectual Dmitry Medvedev fired. Putin is revamping the constitution and will likely give more power to a small coterie of his henchmen. Repressions against innocent people have been stepped up in order to give a stern warning to the population.
This may mean that Putin was frightened by the intensity and breadth of last year’s protests, but it may also be a preparation for a decisive foreign policy move. The latter possibility can’t be discounted.
A major move against Ukraine is unlikely to take the form of a direct military offensive. More likely, Putin will use the clandestine arsenal favored by his organization, the KGB, such as subversion and terrorism. In other words, actions that will weaken Ukraine and humiliate the government in Kyiv, putting pressure on the country to negotiate an unfavorable settlement.
Trump, meanwhile, will look the other way or, since he no longer feels any restraint on his conduct, give Moscow a helping hand.
