In less than a week, the U.S.-Russia relationship has shot from a vacuum to full engagement, with teams led by their respective Foreign Ministers meeting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday. Their goal? To prepare an agenda for a face-to-face summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, who could meet before the end of this month.
For the moment, the two sides appear to be on the same page. Mr. Trump is clearly anxious to frame a peace settlement to end the war in Ukraine and move on – and Mr. Putin says he is amenable to that.
But Moscow is hoping for much more. The Kremlin wants a permanent restoration of full-spectrum bilateral diplomatic relations, in which two superpowers negotiate their differences as equals, Cold War style.
Why We Wrote This
A week ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin was anathema in western capitals. Then Donald Trump phoned him, and top Russian and American officials met on Tuesday. The Kremlin expects to come in from the cold, sparking European fears.
The process seems to be headed that way. Though no one is yet talking about sanctions relief, one member of Russia’s high-powered delegation in Saudi Arabia is sovereign wealth fund chief Kirill Dmitriev, who told journalists on Tuesday that he is already discussing economic cooperation with his American counterparts.
“A return to normality doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s actually a momentous development,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal.
Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, Washington’s relations with Moscow have been marked by confrontation over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, leading to economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, Mr. Lukyanov recalls. “It’s all been downhill,” he says. “The last time we saw a moment anything like this was the Obama ‘reset’ a decade and a half ago.”
A summit between the two presidents will demonstrate to the world that Russia and the United States have returned to respectful and productive dialogue, says Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser.
The two leaders may signal to their respective establishments that it is time to re-open all the channels – arms control, academia, airlines, even the post office – that have been frozen for years. In addition, he expects, they will probably set up a working group to hammer out terms for a possible peace settlement in Ukraine. That would provide an appropriate format for including the Ukrainian and European governments, he suggests.
“I believe there is a will to do this on both sides,” says Mr. Markov. “There is nothing in Putin’s demands for a Ukraine settlement that would harm American interests. Why should the American people care if Ukraine is neutral, if its Russian-speakers have rights, if some traditionally Russian parts of the country revert to Russia, if [Ukraine] has peaceful relations with Moscow?”
The breakthrough came last Wednesday with a lengthy phone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin in which they agreed to revive bilateral diplomacy.
Mr. Trump and his team have been sharply criticized in Europe for having given away in advance key bargaining positions, such as Ukraine’s membership of NATO, or its desire to recover Russian-conquered territory. But Moscow seems to view such moves as simply a recognition of reality.
From Moscow’s perspective, the West, under U.S. leadership, made every effort over the past three years to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and failed.
Unless western governments directly intervene on the battlefield, Russian analysts say, Ukraine has lost the war, and Russia will dictate terms to Kyiv in the end.
Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Kremlin/AP
If the summit fails, says Mr. Lukyanov, President Putin “will just continue pressing Ukraine on the battlefield. There’s not much the West can do that it hasn’t already tried. Trump and his team just want to get rid of Ukraine, get it off their plate as quickly as possible. It’s a lost cause, and they want to move beyond it.”
As for some of the grander ideas that Mr. Trump has expressed, such as weaning Russia away from its deepening association with China, Russian analysts are skeptical. Sanctions have cut Russian economic ties with the West, and supply chains for everything from energy to automobiles have been re-routed, mainly to China.
While still short of an alliance, the relationship between Russia and China has started to look unshakeable.
Among other things, “there is a very tight personal relationship” between President Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, says Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow. “One thing we know about Putin is that he takes his friendships very seriously.”
Andrei Klimov, deputy chair of the international affairs committee of Russia’s upper house of parliament, recalls an old Soviet watchword – “peaceful coexistence” – to explain the Kremlin’s new goal for U.S.-Russia relations.
“It doesn’t mean we’re friends,” he says, “but there’s mutual respect, cooperation where possible, an effort to understand each other’s positions, and active diplomacy aimed at finding a balance.”
