Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin is the biggest mystery in international politics, according to journalist Luke Harding, whose new book Betrayal has sparked heated debate. A review in the Guardian by historian Lawrence Freedman generated thousands of comments from across Europe and beyond on social media, with many responding with a single word: “Duh!”
Deference at the Alaska summit
Harding notes that in his second term, Trump's behaviour towards Putin has been as “weird and perplexing” as during his first. At the Alaska summit last year, the US president applauded his Russian counterpart, meeting him at Anchorage airport and rolling out a red carpet. Trump seemed uncharacteristically nervous as he waited for Putin to emerge from his plane, and at their joint press conference he allowed the Russian president to speak first.
Harding, who wrote the 2017 book Collusion about Moscow's operation to support and cultivate Trump, explores overlapping reasons for this submissive behaviour in Betrayal, published this week in Denmark by Politikens Forlag, with Italian, Finnish and Ukrainian language editions to follow.
Ideology, strongman envy, and kompromat
One factor is ideological: Trump's Maga supporters see Russia as an “anti-woke” kindred state. Putin positions himself as a defender of conservative values, under threat from a decadent and godless Europe. High-profile Trump supporters have travelled to Moscow, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson praised the Russian capital's well-stocked supermarkets.
Another explanation, advanced by former White House adviser Fiona Hill, is strongman envy. Trump would like Putin's freedom of action when it comes to making money and crushing opponents, and he prefers the company of autocrats, while frequently badmouthing European democrats such as former British PM Keir Starmer and Giorgia Meloni.
A third theory is kompromat, a KGB term for compromising material. Declassified records show the Czechoslovakia secret police began spying on Trump in the 1970s, and he visited Moscow in 1987 on a trip organised by a Soviet state agency, with further visits including in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant. A 2020 report by the US Senate intelligence committee alleged that the FSB has secret cameras inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel where Trump stayed during that trip.
Consequences for Ukraine
Harding, who was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief from 2007 to 2011, says the terminology of “asset” doesn't much matter. As chess champion Garry Kasparov notes, if Trump were an asset or agent of influence, what would he do differently? Since 2025, he has stopped direct US military aid to Kyiv, humiliated Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, and repeated Kremlin lies and disinformation.
Russia continues to bombard Kyiv with kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles, while Ukraine carries out its own long-range strikes and has the world's most innovative drone and counter-drone industry. But Kyiv badly lacks US-made Patriot interceptors, the only system capable of shooting down fast-moving ballistic missiles. Trump refuses to send Patriots or allow Kyiv to develop its own version under licence, and civilians die entombed under the ruins of pulverised apartment blocks.
