At the urging of President Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s lower house of Parliament passed legislation Tuesday allowing him to run for a fifth term as president. Putin, who is 67 years old and was first elected in 2000, noted that the legislation would still have to be approved by Russia’s Constitutional Court and in a nationwide plebiscite in April.
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Much of the Kremlin’s self-confidence stems from the belief that the Western world is changing in ways that suit Russia. Donald Trump is seen to represent a long-term trend in the US rather than a short-term blip: Russian analysts reckon that the US will be less focused on intervening around the world to uphold a liberal, rules-based, US-led order, and that it will be more nationalist, mercantilist and interest-focused. So in the long run, the US and Russia should be able to accommodate each other.
File picture showing Russian President Vladimir Putin with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
There is little indication that Putin views India in sentimental terms, unlike an earlier generation of Russian officials exemplified by former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov or the late Russian envoy Alexander Kadakin. India’s high-profile and sustained outreach to Moscow in 2018 is not a reversion to an imagined past.
What observers could not see, or refused to see, was that this was not a meeting between adversaries. It was a meeting between allies, with convergent interests and common goals. These, incidentally, have nothing to do with the 2016 election. They have to do with a common view of the liberal world order that the United States helped create seven decades ago. Both leaders seek its destruction.
Trump’s quest to kindle a bromance with the Russian president has made some Americans squirm. His gushy performance in Helsinki, expressing confidence in Putin instead of US intelligence agencies, ignited outrage across the political spectrum in America. But while Trump’s charm offensive might cause Beijing a twinge of unease, given its tumultuous history with Moscow, in this love triangle, Putin and Xi are linked by strategic necessity, plus genuine personal affection, analysts said.
Television grab of the meeting in Helsinki between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
US President Donald Trump has defended Russia over claims of interference in the 2016 presidential election. After a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump contradicted US intelligence agencies and said there had been no reason for Russia to meddle in the vote. Putin reiterated that Russia had never interfered in US affairs.
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President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has all the makings of a political disaster. Millions of Americans believe Putin has some sinister influence over Trump. The Justice Department just indicted a dozen Russian military hackers for meddling in the 2016 election. Commentators and congressmen are demanding that Trump cancel Monday’s sit-down. And yet the howls of outrage seem to have made Trump only dig in deeper.
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Trump is not the first American president to sit down with a Russian counterpart. What generates such political dread within the Atlantic chancelleries are Trump’s persona and worldview. For them, Trump’s apparent love for Russia is bad enough. When combined with his denunciation of the holiest of the Western institutions — the NATO, G-7, EU and the WTO — the fears of the Atlantic establishments become a lot easier to understand.
The degree of Putin’s genuine popularity is unknowable. His reelection earlier this year was more a display of apathy than ardor. All polling and electoral data in Russia are suspect, but Putin clearly dominates the political culture. He has delivered the stability that many Russians craved before his presidency, although, as Dugin realized in 2012, stability is boring.
Given the tense state of U.S.-Russian relations and the paucity of high-level contacts, there are strong arguments for Trump to hold a summit with Putin. However fractured the relationship, it makes sense for the world’s two nuclear superpowers to sit down together and re-establish some of the channels of communication that were cut off after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and war in southeastern Ukraine.
