Abstract
The election of Donald Trump was welcomed in Moscow in November 2016 as a chance to at least temper the adversity that had beset Russia-U.S. relations since 2014, when President Vladimir Putin used military force to seize control of Crimea and provided support to the rebels in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Above all, the Republican victory suddenly relieved Russian leaders of the prospect of continued Democratic control over the White House, which by fall 2016 they had come to view as inevitable. Hillary Clinton, a staunch supporter of the post-Maidan revolution leadership in Kiev and an advocate of a no-fly zone in Syria and possibly U.S. intervention there, was regarded as simply hostile toward Moscow. Trump, by contrast, surprised the Russians by his neutral-to-positive remarks about Putin and his policies.
This essay opens with a discussion of the impact of U.S. domestic politics on Russian-U.S. relations. It then proceeds to analyze the major issue in the bilateral relationship, which is summarized as “confrontation with islands of cooperation.” Finally, the essay concludes by describing the outlook for the future of relations between Moscow and Washington.
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