Putin is banking on the US’s new approach to Afghanistan

Ever since CIA Director John Ratcliffe returned from Moscow, the Kremlin has been doing nothing but signalling its intention to harden its stance. Spokesman Dmitri Peskov said that the negotiations were dead, refuting the Ukrainian announcement that talks might resume in September. Russia struck Ukrainian cities throughout yesterday, and in Kyiv, the constant air-raid alerts brought the capital to a standstill as never before since the start of the war: if the alarm sounds continuously, several times a day, with only a brief pause between each siren, nothing can resume; trains remain stranded, and every route in and out is thus paralysed. ‘Stifling’ rather than ‘striking’ appears to be the new strategy behind Russian attacks, and the fact that Moscow is keen to paralyse Kyiv right now – following a week of speculation about Ratcliffe’s visit – is part of the Kremlin’s code of conduct. The Washington Post has published a detailed account explaining how Ratcliffe’s trip was reportedly driven by the CIA’s realisation that Trump’s quagmire in the Middle East had convinced the Russians they could secure victory over Kyiv: all they need to do is wait and not give up. There is a precedent: among the reasons why Vladimir Putin became convinced that the invasion of Ukraine would be a swift campaign, without too many obstacles, were the images of defeat, flight and chaos that accompanied the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. 

Putin already had his invasion plan ready; the first request to draw up plans to attack Ukraine was put to his generals in 2014, but despite the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in the Donbas, it was the Kremlin leader himself who told his staff that the time was not right. Some have never forgiven him for backing down, and many of those who, twelve years ago, were calling for the immediate outbreak of all-out war went on to sign the ‘Manifesto of Angry Patriots’ in 2022, denouncing the failings of the Russian Ministry of Defence and the mistakes of the generals leading the army. Some of these patriots are now in prison. Putin needed a sign; he saw it in Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, carried out in accordance with the agreements his predecessor, Donald Trump, had made. Today, the second Trump administration continues to investigate Biden’s role in the collapse of the twenty-year American presence in Kabul, as if the current occupant of the White House were completely unconnected to that failure – which he was not; the Doha agreements with the Taliban had been negotiated before Biden’s arrival. New accusations and threats to dig up compromising material on Afghanistan are very recent, and whilst Trump is fixated on Kabul, he fails to realise that his half-hearted war against the Islamic Republic of Iran is sending Putin the very same message: the United States is distracted, weakened and now also has half-empty arsenals after squandering them on Iranian drones in the Middle East. Faced with this new chapter in Afghanistan, Russia is once again betting against the United States.

Donald Trump has no intention of letting up on the war against Tehran; he cannot afford to return to the heat of battle, but he continues with his threats, and now that it seems the regime is willing to talk, the American president is no longer prepared to return to the terms offered in the June Memorandum. The White House chief is more interested in the Middle East than in Europe, and around him there is constant jockeying amongst his officials – including Ratcliffe – who are trying to make him understand that the two wars are linked, and that Tehran stands to gain if Moscow grows stronger. Trump, on the other hand, keeps repeating that Russia is behaving well in the Middle East, but Putin connects the dots better than his American counterpart; and the more the latter remains fixated on the Middle East and pretends that Ukraine is on another planet, the more the former can say ‘no’ to any negotiated solution.