BLOOD IN THE WATER

Putin’s Post-Election Plot to Exploit Trump Is Leaked

The Russian tyrant is going lame duck hunting.

Vladimir Putin plans to ratchet up pressure on Donald Trump if the midterm elections leave the U.S. president reeling from losses in the House and Senate.

Moscow is already eyeing new ways to push for sanctions relief once Tuesday’s poll results are in, a source close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg.

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The Republican Party is widely expected to suffer a devastating defeat that could very well hand Democrats control of both chambers.

That outcome would severely limit Trump’s ability to push through his legislative agenda and leave his administration facing a barrage of congressional investigations over the scandals that have plagued his second term so far.

But the Kremlin sees Trump emerging weakened from a midterm massacre as a plum opportunity to secure further concessions from his administration.

Moscow’s negotiators are likely to focus on convincing Trump that he doesn’t need to end the war in Ukraine first if he wants to enter lucrative arrangements with Russian companies.

Trump’s envoys in talks to end the conflict, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have tried to lure Putin into conceding on his hardline demands from Ukraine by promising massive business opportunities with U.S. companies once the war is over.

But the 80-year-old U.S. president has shown that such deals are already on the table after signing a controversial agreement with Putin last month to purchase roughly 2 million tons of Russian diesel.

The move provoked global outrage after Ukrainian forces spent much of this year attacking Russian energy infrastructure to cut off revenue for Putin’s war machine.

The White House is also weighing lifting sanctions against the multibillion-dollar Russian Direct Investment Fund, which Moscow has long used as a tool of economic and diplomatic leverage abroad.

U.S. officials have further discussed entering a deal with Russian oil giant Lukoil, advancing a Russian-backed natural gas project in Alaska, and pushing Europe to buy more Russian gas.

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Those talks suggest Trump is unlikely to come out the other end of a midterm battering with greater appetite to support Ukraine in the face of Putin’s four-and-a-half-year full-scale invasion.

Losing control of the House and Senate would make it harder for Trump to threaten Ukraine with a withdrawal of American support unless President Volodymyr Zelensky accepts a peace settlement favorable to Russia.

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But Moscow may be banking on fresh deals with Trump making him less likely to push back if the Kremlin seeks to further pressure Zelensky with intensified Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure ahead of a bitter fifth winter at war.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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