Putin wants to deal

Some big conclusions herein from this week’s prisoner exchange between Russia, and the U.S./West:

Biden/Harris: A huge win for Biden and Harris. Trump has made a big thing of the fact only he could get a deal on hostages and most had assumed that Putin would wait for a Trump win in November to use the prisoner exchange deal as leverage in any future negotiations over Ukraine. The fact Biden/Harris were able to close a complex deal with support of key allies shows the importance of U.S. allegiances which Biden has doubled down on following the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin: A 16-10 swap in the West’s favour is not a great return for Putin. Having to surrender high level Putin critics like Kara-Murza and Yasin must have been painful for Putin. It shows that Putin wants to deal now which creates interesting momentum around a potential Ukraine deal before the U.S. elections. There are clearly channels of communication open between Russia and the West and these could be similarly used to talk peace over Ukraine. The long war ultimately does not work for Putin - there are plenty of risks therein (Prigozhin 2, and see Wagner losses this week in Mali) and especially if Trump loses in November. Ukraine is seeing a real ramp up in military supplies now with F16s arriving in the past week and the U.S. rolling out the $61 billion support package for Ukraine before the November elections. Add in the $50 billion G7 support for Ukraine linked to immobilised Russian assets and Ukraine is getting decent financial support now which it can use to purchase weapons to improve its military position in the months ahead. A Harris win in November would just double down Western support for Ukraine, leaving Russia vulnerable in Ukraine.

Trump: That Putin opted to gift Biden/Harris a deal on prisoners perhaps shows that he no longer thinks Trump can win and is now banking on a Harris win. A blow to Trump. Momentum seems to be behind Harris with the risk (from Putin’s eyes) of Trump self destructing as he did this week in raising the issue of Harris’ race.

Turkey - Erdogan/Fidan/Kalin played a huge role in getting this deal over the line. The West owes Erdogan one and Biden called Erdogan personally to thank him. Erdogan’s high profile stance over Gaza and the spat now with Israel over Haniyeh’s death, and Turkish mourning, would normally have provoked concern of possible Western sanctions on Turkey. No chance of that now as Turkey has proven its worth as a middle man both on Russia and continuing to be the case of Gaza thru its close connections to Hamas and Qatar. Erdogan will use the leverage he extracted from the prisoner exchange to cement his position in the Muslim world as the leading critic of Israel over Gaza, and the Western hypocrisy over it’s approach.