Putin “is the biggest winner” of the war in Iran

How Trump’s war with Iran is benefiting the Russian president

If Vladimir Putin’s 25 years of expansionist rule have taught the West anything, it is that the Russian president should not be taken at his word.

Still, senior US officials often continue to believe the Russian leader’s statements. President Donald Trump’s biggest mistake is thinking that Putin wants peace in Ukraine, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Now, Trump’s team is in danger of falling back on its own credulity.

According to a CNN report, as Moscow helps identify drones threatening US troops in the war with Iran, the administration could further ease sanctions aimed at weakening the Russian war machine in Ukraine. The objective would be to alleviate the political pressure that Trump faces due to rising oil prices.

It would be an extraordinary turnaround if Putin emerged as the first big winner from the growing crisis in the Middle East, after Trump rattled global energy markets by launching his own war.

Putin boasted about the oil shock at a meeting in the Kremlin two days ago, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning oil expert Daniel Yergin.

“Vladimir Putin won the lottery here. He’s the biggest winner so far, because the price of oil has skyrocketed and that finances his war. And the sanctions are being lifted,” Yergin, vice president of S&P Global, told CNN, in an interview conducted by Erin Burnett on Wednesday.

Russian official meets with Trump team in Florida

In the latest chapter in the diplomatic drama between the United States and Russia during the Trump era, a senior Russian official met with members of the presidential team in Florida on Wednesday.

Special envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Josh Gruenbaum, senior White House advisor.

“The teams discussed a number of topics and agreed to stay in touch,” Witkoff said in a statement, which did not directly mention any of the pressing issues in relations between Washington and Moscow.

Before the meeting, however, Witkoff downplayed reports that Russia was providing Iran with information on the movements of US troops, ships and aircraft.

He told CNBC on Tuesday that Moscow had denied such behavior during a phone call between Trump and Putin the day before.

“We can take their word for it. That’s what they said,” he said.

On CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also downplayed the risks to U.S. troops from Russian activities, insisting: “No one is putting us in danger.”

But the picture became more complex on Wednesday when CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh exclusively revealed that Russia is helping Iran with drone tactics learned from the war in Ukraine to hit US and Gulf targets.

A Western intelligence official said it was the most direct and worrying cooperation so far between allies of the so-called anti-US axis.

Also on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — who sent drone experts to help U.S. forces combat Iranian Shahed drones — claimed that the Russians are helping the Islamic Republic not only with unmanned aerial vehicles, but also with missiles and air defense systems.

Zelensky’s offer is yet another sign of how intense drone duels between Ukraine and Russia have transformed the nature of modern warfare. That dynamic is now emerging in a new theater of operations, where relatively cheap weapons threaten the world’s most sophisticated military.

Putin’s strategic game

The revelations about Russia’s role in identifying targets for drones also highlight Putin’s complex strategic game of exploiting global crises, while cultivating his relationship with Trump to advance his goals in Ukraine.

Trump hopes the war with Iran will end soon, but the massive offensive by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic is being complicated by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for oil transport.

The resulting rise in oil prices threatens Trump’s already fragile political position and has prompted his administration to look for ways to respond.

Washington had managed to pressure India to reduce dependence on Russian oil to force Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. However, last week it granted a 30-day exemption that allows Indian refiners to buy oil from Russia’s so-called “ghost fleet”.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday on Fox Business: “We may be able to lift even more sanctions on Russian oil.”

The statement prompted Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to call for an investigation and hearing of Bessent, according to the Punchbowl News website.

An unexpected oil boom is just one way Putin could benefit from the war with Iran.

The United States and its European allies can divert resources and weapons that were intended to support Kiev. At the same time, while Trump’s team met with Putin’s emissary, European allies were still trying to deal with the US president’s irritation at their reluctance to participate in the attack on Iran.

All of this feeds into Putin’s long-term strategy of dividing cohesion among NATO countries.

These advantages may partially compensate for possible losses in Russian foreign policy if the Iranian regime is weakened or even falls.

Russia this year lost another ally when a US special forces operation led to the ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.

Putin has several reasons for helping Iran:

• It allows him to take revenge for the intelligence support that the US gave to Ukraine in the war against Russia.

• If it helps Iran prolong the conflict, Washington will have less room to pressure it in peace negotiations over Ukraine.

• Prolonged disruption to Gulf oil routes could keep oil prices high, financing the Russian war effort.

• If US and allied forces become overwhelmed in the Middle East, new strategic opportunities could arise for Moscow elsewhere around the globe.

For Tehran, Russian aid also has value far beyond the propaganda effect of showing that it does not face pressure from the US and Israel alone.

Russia’s devastating attacks against Kiev and other cities have allowed its experts to perfect formations and tactics, often using dozens of drones simultaneously. This knowledge could help Iran counter the air defenses of the US and Gulf countries.

Moscow also has satellites capable of providing attack data with great precision.

Putin’s delicate balance

Despite this, Putin has to maintain a delicate balance.

Its central objective remains to win the war in Ukraine, in part by prolonging peace talks to allow its ground forces to continue conquering territory.

Therefore, it cannot risk a direct confrontation with the United States over Iran.

The Kremlin has not commented on the latest reports that Moscow will be directly helping Tehran with its drone program — revelations that represent a further embarrassment for the Trump administration.

Trump’s empathy with the Russian leader has marked the Republican’s two presidencies.

The president even said that he and Putin were victims of a “witch hunt” related to assessments by US intelligence services that concluded that Moscow interfered in the 2016 elections.

Witkoff, the face of the administration’s attempts to negotiate peace in Ukraine — so far unsuccessful — has followed the same line. He often leaves meetings with Putin echoing the Russian leader’s arguments.

“I don’t consider Putin a bad person,” he said last year of the man who launched an invasion that has killed thousands of Ukrainians.

A transcript of a phone call analyzed by Bloomberg last year also became public, in which Witkoff advised a senior Russian official on the best way to speak to Trump.

A 28-point peace plan drafted by Witkoff last year could have been written in Moscow and took weeks of tweaking by Secretary of State Marco Rubio before serving as the basis for negotiations.

Republicans often have to balance politically when talking about Trump’s relationship with Putin.

Kansas Senator Roger Marshall told CNN on Wednesday that the global energy situation in the context of the war with Iran is “very delicate”.

“I think lifting the sanctions on Russian oil bought by India is doing something positive for the United States right now,” he said, adding: “Of course I don’t have any sympathy for Russia either… I think as quickly as we lifted those sanctions, we can reimpose them.”

This could take time, especially given expectations that the turbulence in energy markets could last for weeks, even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens soon.

Impressive images released on Wednesday of two oil tankers on fire in the Gulf, after suspected Iranian attacks, however, raise the possibility of an even deeper crisis.

Unless Trump can quickly pull the United States out of the conflict, he may end up sharing something else with Putin: having started a war that underestimated his adversary’s ability to respond and that continues longer than he expected.