When will America wake up to how badly Putin has kicked our ass?

Here comes the biggest sellout in American history. U.S. sanctions against Russia are being leveraged into a geopolitical and financial quid pro quo that the world may never recover from.

This should remind you of the sort of quid pro quo the Trump campaign was offered at least twice during the 2016 campaign, once by a Russian spy to Trump’s campaign manager and another by a Putin-connected lawyer to Don Jr. at Trump Tower.

The United States sanctioned Lukoil, one of Russia’s two largest oil companies, on October 22, 2025, to pressure Putin to end his war. Nearly a year later, the Times reports, Putin raised the sale of Lukoil's foreign assets with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff at the Kremlin on September 5 and proposed finishing it to show Russians they can do business with the United States. Kushner and Witkoff left for Kyiv carrying a plan that reflected long-standing Russian terms, according to the Christian Science Monitor’s Fred Weir. It lets Russia keep every territory it occupies and requires Ukraine to withdraw from the entire Donbas and parts of Zaporizhzhia.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser said afterward that Putin told the envoys Russia would achieve its objectives—making it clear that this concession is treated merely as a waypoint on the road to swallowing the rest of the country.

The Times identifies the leading bidder as a group led by Todd Boehly, who, of course, gave $1 million to MAGA Inc. last December and another $1 million to Trump’s inauguration through his investment firm. Major stakeholders would include a fund controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whose other fund bought a large stake in the Trump family crypto company World Liberty Financial. They would also include the Al-Khayyat conglomerate, which is partnering with Kushner and Ivanka Trump on an Albanian resort, the one many Albanians hate so much they may take down the government. A senior administration official confirmed that Witkoff and Kushner helped negotiate the financial terms of the government’s own stake through the Development Finance Corporation.

Official sign-off would instantly skyrocket those assets in value.

Witkoff's spokeswoman says he has "no conflict of interest and no financial stake in this matter," and the Times found no sign that either man profits directly. That ignores what's happening in front of all of our eyes: the buyers who have paid the Trump family are the ones whose assets gain value when Putin and Trump both sign off.

Do you get what this all means?

Vladimir Putin is on the verge of achieving all three of his greatest ambitions: The sellout and permanent occupation of Ukraine. The likely destruction of NATO, which cannot survive this sort of betrayal, especially with Trump siding with Russia as it effectively wages a hybrid war on Europe. And the destruction of the United States as the moral and financial leader of the world due to Trump’s corrupt nosedive of the nation.

On September 5, Kirill Dmitriev took part in the Kremlin talks with Kushner and Witkoff, and the Times says he has been closely involved in the Lukoil sale. Kushner sat in the Trump Tower conference room in 2016 when a Kremlin-connected lawyer raised sanction relief in a meeting about offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.

We can still stop this. A significant window may close on October 22, and I’ll get to that.

But first, let’s talk about how we got here, to a calculated betrayal that rivals both the Iran and Iraq wars as the greatest geopolitical unforced errors of the century. But it is undoubtedly the greatest betrayal and treachery against American freedom ever committed through American foreign policy. And unless you read Phillips P. OBrien, you likely have no idea how far Trump and Kushner have gone to make sure Putin gets the upper hand over Kyiv.

And let’s be clear: The only Americans who will benefit from us caving to Russia in this colossal and amoral way are named Trump, or are in business with Kushner or the Witkoffs. Rewarding Putin for his constant slaughter of Ukrainian civilians, the theft of tens of thousands of children, and an unrepentant war of aggression won’t just immiserate all of Europe. It will destroy what’s left of any goodwill any decent person or country has for America.

The decline will be steep and likely irreversible. The loss of American hegemony will be all but certain. And anyone who looks forward to a world led by Xi and Putin can rejoice.

To see how methodically this web was spun, we’re reissuing Marcy Wheeler’s series Ball of Thread to explain exactly how Putin got our asses. You’ll discover how the players behind the 2016 quid pro quos are carrying out these devil bargains now.

According to The Moscow Times’ summary of the Mueller report, Dmitriev, who then headed Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, passed a reconciliation plan to Kushner’s friend Rick Gerson, and Gerson handed it to Kushner before the inauguration. Dmitriev later told Gerson the plan “played an important role” in Trump’s first call with Putin.

Lukoil’s refineries in the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania produce diesel and jet fuel, which the Times says have been in short supply since the Iran war began, giving Trump a reason to want the deal. Trump confirmed at a press conference that Kushner was among the advisers who convinced him to launch that war, as I wrote in March. The way I read it, the war created the shortage, Putin is offering the cure, and the cure comes with sanctions relief for the people who have already paid Trump’s family. Awfully convenient.

We can still stop them, or try, because we are still free and not cowards. And there’s no need to let a floundering duck of the most wounded variety curse our nation forever.

The license that lets buyers negotiate with Lukoil expires October 22; Treasury has reissued it ten times since December, and any sale needs a separate Treasury authorization that every contract under the license must be made contingent on."

Treasury’s own guidance says any sale must completely sever Lukoil’s overseas arm from the parent company and give Lukoil no windfall, and it says the goal of the Russia sanctions is “to place pressure on Moscow to end its war.” Treasury’s sanctions office told the Times it “implements foreign policy as determined by the White House.”

In March, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrats on the Senate Finance and House Oversight committees, demanded answers from the White Houseabout Kushner’s fundraising. Reports said Kushner was soliciting billions from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds for his private equity firm while negotiating for the United States.

Call your senators and your House member and ask them to add the Lukoil bidders to that inquiry, and to demand that Treasury disclose, before October 22, who has applied for a license to buy Lukoil’s assets along with all of Kushner’s “private” transactions or deals in progress.

On October 22, Treasury shouldn’t just roll this over for an eleventh time. It should say now that it will not issue the separate license that would let any sale close. Refusing that license is the only way to stop a compromised sanction regime from turning into the ultimate quid pro quo that makes all Putin’s dreams come true.

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