A recurrent nightmare of history has been the arrival of elected leaders who gained power through the promotion of a populist sentiment toward such divisive issues as immigration, racial animus and class struggle. Their promise of change would come with a price – the revelation that executive power provided the authority to alter the mechanics of government to suit their purpose. Change would come in the form of judicial action and financial pressure upon institutions meant to restrain the arbitrary exercise of executive power over the public good, and the policing of society by alternative means. The pattern is a familiar one having played out during the 20th century most notably in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. It led to the creation of repressive authoritarian regimes that not only established control over their own society but dictated a foreign policy that made the world less secure.
Two aging leaders, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, have now undertaken a similar course toward self-serving agendas meant to secure some sort of legacy that, unbeknownst to them, will achieve the opposite of what was intended. Each has managed already to diminish the moral status of their respective countries and shamed themselves in the process. Both are intent upon rearranging the international order but not through some sense of altruism that would provide for the welfare of all peoples. Rather, their purpose is to ensure that the powerful inherit the right to dictate their terms for the rest of humanity who do not have the capability to harness the same destructive power that they possess. The lessons seemingly learned from the strife of world war in the past century appeared transformational and lasting but are now succumbing once more to the forces of authoritarianism in the way that threatens a similar outcome. The promise of the United Nations and other global agencies such as the International Criminal Court to constrain such leaders and their regimes has been insufficient to secure for the world the order it needs to function for the betterment of all nations. The hope at present for humanity depends not only upon the outcome of wars these leaders have started but upon the will of those, domestic and international, who must resist their influence.
Trump
The president occupies the center of a circle of loyalists and family members who have undertaken a scale of corruption never before seen in American government. Trump’s deference toward Putin in spite of the latter’s history of condoning criminal activity both domestically and internationally, is not surprising given the amorality of his own character. His intention of waiving tariffs on buyers of Russian energy imposed by the Graham bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 86-11 and which he signed recently, is unlikely to be shaken by the angry bipartisan rebuke that followed. The “deal” as Trump called it, in exchange for an American jailed by the Russians, not only freed Russian energy for export in amounts insufficient to address American fuel shortages but waived sanctions on individual Russians complicit in Putin’s war effort, Russia’s financial institutions and even its illicit shadow fleet. Reacting to the news, Tom Nichols in The Atlantic wrote, “Trump is a weak man who is intimidated by stronger and smarter men,” and Andrew McCarthy in National Review added the American president “has sided with the totalitarian aggressor over the allied European democracy upon which it preys.” Trump’s move has likewise invited more bawdy forms of criticism, at home and abroad, making him the focus of public ridicule at a particularly ill-suited time before the nation’s midterm elections. His fawning over the Russian leader has resurfaced the label attributed to him as Russia’s “useful idiot,” a term the Kremlin uses to categorize those subservient to their cause. To worsen matters, Steven Witkoff, Trump’s “special” envoy to Russia, acting as key negotiator on peace talks, unwittingly referred to Putin as a “humanitarian” on the occasion of the release of the American POW, apparently unbothered by Putin’s criminal past and ongoing war crimes.
More critically, news broke recently of unannounced disruptions of the Starshield system which operates military-grade satellite communications for defense applications and of the Starlink system, both used by Ukraine’s military. The restrictions have hindered the interception of Russian jet-powered drones targeting Ukraine’s cities. Starlink has also provided targeting capability for strikes upon enemy installations in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine as well as the means for aerial delivery of food and water to advance positions on the front. It appears now that Elon Musk was responsible for the decision to deny the latter for Ukraine although it is hard to appreciate how this would have taken place without the knowledge of the Trump administration or at least that of the U.S. Department of Defense. The Starshield system, in particular, is controlled by the Pentagon and a bipartisan group of senators has called for the Defense Department’s inspector general to investigate the lapse in judgement.
In the midst of this fiasco, Trump has called for Ukrainian President Zelensky to be replaced and for elections to be conducted while the war proceeds unabated on Ukrainian territory. He has blamed Zelensky for the diesel fuel shortage in the United States, deflecting his own substantial accountability for the global crisis with the war he started in the Middle East. Ukraine’s campaign targeting Russia’s refineries began in 2023, long before Trump’s war. It was intended to diminish the oil export revenue Russia was receiving to finance its war machine and to reduce fuel availability for its military to process the war. The campaign has progressively escalated with 32 strikes recorded during the first five months of 2026 and has resulted in Russia having to either restrict or ban diesel export to secure its own reserves. The effort has succeeded in reducing Russia’s crude oil processing to a 20-year low and dropping oil refining capacity by over 40%.
Prior to 2026, Russia was providing no direct oil imports to the United States because of a ban imposed upon its crude oil and petroleum derivatives. The irony for Trump centers upon the fact that his diesel fuel crisis escalated with the onset of his war in the Middle East in February 2026 resulting in diesel fuel prices rising to a record high in September. The threats now existing at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, where up to 20% of transit still remains impeded and subject to change for the worse at any time, and the Bab el Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, where about 90% of oil transit has been affected, are the primary reason for Trump’s folly, not Ukraine.
On a further note, the majority of foreign crude oil entering the United States comes from Canada which accounts for over 60% of all crude oil imports with Mexico ranking second and supplying upward of 10%. Canadian heavy crude oil in particular is refined in the United States into low-sulfur diesel and other fuels. In fact, American refineries in the Midwest are specifically configured to process the heavy crude imported from Western Canada. The situation highlights another embarrassing aspect of Trump’s foreign policy which has targeted Canada over trade relations and which economists have criticized for his distortion of the facts justifying his approach. A trade war has begun for no reason and has gone on to include outright import bans on some products. The situation appears now to explain, in part, why Trump is calling upon Russia for diesel fuel when Russia’s own reserves appear inadequate rather than Canada with which the U.S. shares a direct pipeline.
Putin
The Russian leader knows nothing of morality and can be credited for founding a considerable kleptocracy of his own which he disguises in the form of a marginally legitimate government. Political violence is accepted conduct when it meets with his approval. The 2006 poisoning with polonium-210 of Alexander Litvinenko in England, the 2015 shooting of Boris Nemtsov on a bridge in Moscow, and the 2024 poisoning by lethal toxin of Alexei Navalny amount to assassinations of only some of many who have crossed Putin in one fashion or another. The practice has remained consistent throughout Putin’s tenure and a recognized means of maintaining control in situations where the matter cannot be resolved in any other way. The most notable assassination stemming from Putin’s war in Ukraine was that of Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023 following the armed mutiny by his Wagner group against Russia’s military leadership. He was eliminated by a planted bomb detonated midair on his plane.
Perhaps even more self-serving than his American counterpart, Putin can lay claim to a number of exclusive official residences, villas or palaces throughout Russia. The grandest are found in Sochi along the eastern Black Sea coast and on the shore of Lake Valdai to the northeast of Moscow. Putin is also linked to a fleet of as many as 10 yachts and superyachts that are tied to shell companies or oligarch associates. Most notable are the superyacht Graceful, valued at $100M, which was recently accompanied by a destroyer until it turned off its digital marine tracker and disappeared from view, and the Scheherazade, valued at $700M, currently in Italy after its seizure by Italian authorities.
These possessions pale in comparison to his ultimate self-serving imperialist fantasy of recreating the Russian Empire, an effort that is proving to be a bridge too far. The wars in Chechnya, Georgia and, particularly now, in Ukraine have proven to be stumbling blocks with the most recent war not only threatening Russia’s economy but showing its military to be less than advertised. Yet he continues despite losing ground in Ukraine and depleting his military of personnel and armament because he is unable to stop for fear of losing what remains of his stature domestically and possibly his life. Now an indicted war criminal, Putin continues to accumulate a register of war crimes with a campaign of blatant destruction of civilian infrastructure and the killing of innocent civilians. Neither he nor his camarilla have any justification for these actions that can only serve to terrorize and subjugate a people intent on securing a proper democracy free from the influence of Russia’s repressive regime.
On February 4, 2022, immediately prior to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics and 20 days before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin met with Xi Jinping. The agenda included an agreement for Russia to supply China with further natural gas, a joint declaration of a “no-limits” Sino-Russian cooperation and a rather peculiar statement opposing the further expansion of NATO. The statement aligned with Putin’s prior standing argument against NATO’s “encroachment” upon Russia’s western border, an argument that more served his distorted version of events than what the reality of the situation actually declared. In truth, Eastern European countries, in particular, were at the time clamoring for membership in NATO, a defensive organization, as a means of protecting their own national interests against any future Russian aggression. Unpleasant memories of economic downturn and societal repression suffered under the yoke of Russian hegemony during the Cold War still prevailed.
Since this time, China has materially supported Russia in the course of the war, becoming Russia’s primary market for oil and gas which had been sanctioned by the West. Between December 2022 and August 2026, China acquired 50% of Russia’s crude oil export and 37% of its coal. Chinese exports to Russia have included consumer products, commercial vehicles, particularly trucks, industrial machinery, electronic parts and automated equipment. Most important among these have been dual-use technologies that have supplied Russia’s military industry with essential parts for weapons manufacturing making China the primary enabler of Russia’s war. China has surreptitiously supplied engines for Russia’s drones over the past year and more recently has sent micro-turbojet engines to enhance their performance further. In turn, Putin’s Russia has become heavily indebted to China to a degree that may ultimately compromise its future beyond what damage the war itself has caused. Moreover, since the early stage of the war, Russia’s financial system has become increasingly reliant on China’s yuan and upon its lending terms, weakening the sovereignty of the Russian ruble and creating serious liquidity issues in its financial system at a time when its reserves are being depleted by the war.
Russia’s asymmetric relationship with China has resulted in it no longer being regarded as an independent global player but rather a subordinate or “junior partner” in China’s global agenda. Far more than benefiting from the purchase of discounted Russian oil, China has been shielded from international scrutiny of its Pacific interests, particularly those centered upon Taiwan. This came as a result of the shift of attention toward Putin’s ongoing war in Europe and perhaps now as well with Trump’s ongoing war in the Middle East. In Kremlin-speak, Putin has himself become Xi Jinping’s “useful idiot.”
Epilogue
Authoritarians are opportunists. They are, first and foremost, intent on gaining advantage over others including their fellow authoritarians. Those like Trump are impulsive and lack the required mental faculties to conduct themselves in a calculated fashion, leading them to play out their cards too quickly. They fall prey to those like Putin who are better trained, more disciplined and skilled at advantaging their position by compromising those of others and playing to their weaknesses. But Putin suffers from overreach, an outstanding and irresistible feature of his narcissism. It has led him to not just continue his war in Ukraine but to threaten Europe itself. His dependence upon the support of Xi Jinping, who has started no wars, remains paramount to achieving his goals in Europe but in doing so, Putin is selling out Russia and leaving China the primary beneficiary of this global tragic comedy.
Copyright @Kost Elisevich, MD, PhD 2026. All rights reserved. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.
