Анджела Стент - Putin's World - Russia Against the West and with the Rest

Even if the US and Russia succeed in establishing working groups to tackle these issues, Congress will exercise its prerogatives and implement the CAATSA. More sanctions on oligarchs deemed close to Putin will be forthcoming, particularly if Russian interference continues through the 2018 midterm elections and beyond. In September 2018 the Trump administration announced new sanctions against individuals and countries that seek to interfere in US elections. 84So far Russia has managed to overcome the most acute economic effects of the sanctions. It has sought to manage the problem by neutering the sanctions, as opposed to accommodating US concerns. Russia has turned to China for financial support and for energy cooperation. It is also not completely clear what Russia would have to do to get either the Ukraine or election interference sanctions removed. With oil prices rising, the economic pressure has lessened, but the latest US sanctions reduce incentives for Western companies to do business in Russia, given the possibility of their extraterritorial application and the uncertainty of who will next be sanctioned.

How important is repairing relations with the United States for Vladimir Putin? The two major foreign policy successes in his first three terms were the strengthening of ties with China and Russia’s return to the Middle East as the key power broker. These resulted from increasing strains in the relationship with the United States and a US retreat from the Middle East. The official Russian state media depicts the United States in extremely negative terms, although, like their president, they continue to praise Donald Trump. Both blame the American people for trying to prevent Trump’s rapprochement with Russia. Many attribute the fact that Putin received 76 percent of the votes in the March 2018 election to the perceived threat from the West and his promise to defend the Motherland from enemies.

But Putin faces a dilemma when it comes to the United States. On the one hand, he seeks recognition by the US as an equal to legitimize Russia’s status as a great power. He would also like to see US sanctions removed. On the other hand, the US represents a danger because of its uneven attempts—at least until Donald Trump took power—to promote democracy and the rule of law in Russia, which are seen as direct threats to the current ruling elite. A close relationship with China, which never raises the subject of Russia’s domestic politics and has no interest in democracy promotion, is more congenial.

Putin has seized the opportunity presented by Trump’s evident desire to have a strong relationship with him. Moreover, the Kremlin sees a West that is in disarray. Donald Trump’s denigration of NATO members and his questioning of the utility of maintaining the alliance, combined with his launch of a trade war against the European Union and Britain’s exit from the EU, may well accomplish what neither the Soviets nor post-Soviet Russia succeeded in doing: a rupture in the Western alliance. The Kremlin can only sit back and observe these transatlantic quarrels with satisfaction while it seeks to exploit and benefit from them. Putin has apparently concluded that it will be possible to improve ties with Donald Trump’s America even if Russia does not change its behavior in Syria, Ukraine, or cyberspace. After all, he secured a summit with Trump four years after the Obama administration sought to isolate Russia for its actions in Ukraine, and yet Russia still supports the separatists in an ongoing war. Its cyber interventions in the United States also continue apace. Putin may well believe that if Russia waits long enough, the United States will reengage and put aside its previous reservations. But that may well prove to be a miscalculation.

An outwardly cordial relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin should not be confused with concrete progress on real issues. The two leaders can praise each other and pledge to tackle difficult problems in the relationship, but as the contrasting official Russian and American reactions to Helsinki showed, both sides may have different interpretations of what they agreed upon—and what they want to do. Trump returned from Helsinki insisting, “I’m different than other presidents. I’m a dealmaker. I’ve made deals all my life. I do really well. I make great deals.” 85But what is the deal? Rhetoric aside, while Putin’s goals are reasonably clear, Trump’s are not. What is it that he really wants from Russia?

In the best of times, the US-Russia relationship is compartmented, with areas of cooperation coexisting with areas of rivalry or conflict. But when it is not the best of times, and the areas of conflict far outweigh those of cooperation, the challenge is to identify issues on which engagement is necessary and proceed with caution and realism. Since their Helsinki meeting, both Trump and Putin have conveyed the impression of forward movement in their relationship. But in reality, US-Russian ties may remain adversarial for many years to come, with all the risks that come from that.

The many dimensions of Putin’s world were on full display in one month in the summer of 2018 in a whirlwind display of power. First came the World Cup and the goodwill it produced for both Russian and foreign fans. A day after the final, during which Emmanuel Macron sat with Putin cheering the victorious French team, Putin flew to Helsinki to meet Donald Trump. At their press conference, Putin was in charge, complimenting his American counterpart on their joint accomplishments, as Trump praised him and appeared to disavow his own intelligence agencies. Then it was off to Johannesburg for a BRICS summit, where Putin lauded the organization that Russia co-founded with China twelve years before, one from which the West is explicitly excluded. He reiterated the BRICS commitment to the Iran nuclear agreement, which the Trump administration had jettisoned. Next it was back to the Kremlin, to honor the Russian soccer team, which had performed much better than expected. Putin then took part in a solemn ceremony commemorating the 1,030th anniversary of Russia’s conversion to Christianity. He spoke under the giant statue of his namesake, Prince Vladimir (completed in 2016), who converted Russia in 988. Standing a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, Putin addressed a crowd of priests in gold robes, praising Prince Vladimir, who—to the irritation of the Kremlin—is also claimed by the Ukrainians as their historical sovereign. The next day he was in Saint Petersburg, celebrating Navy Day with an impressive military parade. He complimented Russia’s powerful fleet that “defends the Motherland.” He did so standing in front of the statue of Peter the Great—one of his heroes—on the Neva River. 2Within two days Putin had placed himself adjacent to two “founding fathers” of the Russian state: Vladimir, who made Russia an Orthodox Christian nation, and Peter, who turned Muscovy into the Russian Empire and opened Russia to the West. This is Putin’s world: meetings with world leaders in fora where Russia is a key player, highlighting Russia’s military might, celebrating the Kremlin’s close ties to the Orthodox Church, and summoning the great symbols of the past to stand with him as he marks two decades at Russia’s helm and approaches the future.