By abandoning Ukraine in favor of mounting an all-out air war against Iran, Trump has done a huge service to a much more serious threat, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. How does Russia gain? Let us count the ways.

For starters, the diversion of material support from Ukraine to the Iran war makes Putin’s war on Ukraine easier. Even before the war on Iran, Ukraine had a shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems used to shoot down missiles and drones. Now, the U.S. is rapidly running through those same missiles to defend U.S. targets in the Middle East.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Lockheed Martin’s entire 2025 output of its Patriot interceptor, the PAC-3, was around 600. At least two Patriot interceptors and sometimes three are typically required to destroy a single ballistic missile. Ukraine’s air force estimates it needs at least 60 PAC-3 interceptors a month just to keep pace with Russian ballistic missile attacks.

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Russia has also used Iranian-made Shahed drones against Ukraine, another practical benefit of Putin’s de facto alliance with Iran.

In response, Ukraine developed cheap interceptor drones known as the Sting system. Last week, Ukrainian President Zelensky said on X, “We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection,” against Iran’s drone systems. Zelensky said Ukraine would supply the U.S. with Sting interceptors because “Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security.”

If only. What an insane turnabout. Instead of helping Ukraine resist Russia, Trump is burning through the U.S. arsenal to the point where he needs to turn to Ukraine for help.

In addition, the sudden scarcity of oil is a huge gift to Russia. Last August, Trump imposed tariffs of 25 percent on India as a penalty for India’s imports of Russian oil. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 30-day suspension of some of those tariffs.

The sudden scarcity of oil is a huge gift to Russia.

Oil and gas revenues declined from 45 percent of Russia’s state budget in 2021 to around 20 percent in 2025, as a result of sanctions by the international community against Russia’s Ukraine war. Now, as Trump has substantially abandoned Ukraine, Russia is finding plenty of willing buyers for its oil.

According to Reuters, Russia was forced to sell its oil at a discount of $10 to $13 a barrel before the attacks on Iran. Now, Russian oil is selling at a premium of $4 to $5.

It is in Putin’s interest that the war drag on as long as possible. In order to keep Trump bogged down in Iran, Putin’s intelligence operatives have even helped the Iranian regime identify U.S. targets, according to several reliable press reports.

Will any of this give Trump second thoughts about his priorities? So far, no.

Meanwhile, though the U.S. and Israel appear to have operated in lockstep, the goals, tactics and interests of the two nations diverge. Netanyahu is cleaning Trump’s clock, because he has a clear theory of the case and Trump doesn’t. A joint U.S. war aimed at regime change in Iran has been a goal of Netanyahu’s for more than two decades, and he finally got Trump to go along.

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But it is in Trump’s interest to try to find an early exit ramp from the war that doesn’t look like a defeat, while Netanyahu wants the war to continue as long as possible. For Trump, the best of a series of not-great outcomes is some kind of near-term cease-fire in which a seriously weakened version of the Iranian regime survives, but ceases attacking Gulf states and allows oil shipments to resume. The U.S. reserves the right to resume the war if, say, Iran tries to rebuild nuclear capacity or continues its financial backing of Hamas and Hezbollah. That’s far from a decisive win for Trump, but at least it ends the fighting and limits the economic damage.

But Netanyahu wants the war to continue to destroy the regime, and Israel’s attacks are calculated to provoke Iranian responses and opposition to even a tacit truce. The war is far more popular in Israel than Netanyahu is, with polls showing that 81 percent of Jewish Israelis support it.

With a parliamentary election required by November, Netanyahu cynically hopes that some of the war’s popularity will rub off on him. But the same polls show more support for the centrist opposition than for Netanyahu, and those numbers haven’t budged in a year. The opposition is far more likely to convert the military gains into a durable settlement with Israel’s neighbors, because Netanyahu’s far-right coalition refuses to address the legitimate rights of Palestinians.

One of the many bizarre aspects of Trump is his philo-semitism of convenience. His embrace of Jews extends from his use of attacks on alleged campus antisemitism to destroy civil rights for Black people to his love affair with Netanyahu. But if the war ends badly for Trump, and he concludes that he was manipulated by Bibi, that could turn around on a dime.

Looking at America’s national interests relative to Russia, Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and our historic allies in Europe, to say that Trump has things backwards is to put it kindly.

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Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His latest book is Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy.   Follow Bob at his site, robertkuttner.com, and on Twitter.