Any evaluation of Donald Trump’s present considering on Russia dangers getting old-fashioned in a short time.
Learn an excessive amount of into a person tweet, put up or off-the-cuff remark by the US president, and the hazard is that your conclusions can be contradicted by tomorrow’s tweet, put up or off-the-cuff remark.
Consider me. I have been there.
As at the moment’s version of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper put it: “The US president blows cold and hot…he alters his thoughts on key points as simply as he alters sneakers.”
Not too long ago, although, with regards to Russia, the White Home does seem to have been blowing extra chilly than scorching, which explains the headline in at the moment’s version of Moskovsky Komsomolets: “The Russian-American Chill.”
Following Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s most up-to-date phone dialog on 3 July – their sixth this 12 months – President Trump revealed that the 2 leaders “did not make any progress” in direction of ending the battle in Ukraine.
“I am not joyful about that,” he added.
4 days later, President Trump threatened to impose a 10 percent tariff on any country aligned with the BRICS, the group of countries that features Russia.
On Tuesday, his frustration boiled over with a few of his strongest language to this point: “We get lots of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you wish to know the reality,” President Trump stated at a cupboard assembly.
“He is very good on a regular basis, however it seems to be meaningless.”
At the moment I requested for the Kremlin’s response.
“We’re fairly calm about this,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed me on a Kremlin convention name for journalists.
“Trump’s method of speaking is mostly fairly harsh…we plan to proceed our dialogue with Washington to fix our damaged bilateral relations…we hope that Trump and his group will proceed their efforts to get the peace course of again to the realm of diplomacy.”
The Kremlin was attempting, not less than, to sound diplomatic.
The Russian press? It wasn’t even attempting.
In Komsomolskaya Pravda, a political pundit accused Donald Trump of “an absence of geopolitical achievements”.
The tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote about President Trump’s “mercurial temperament, his propensity for sudden moods and chaotic adjustments of route”.
This week’s version of Arguments and Details mocked Donald Trump over Elon Musk’s new America Party.
“Now each time the US president says ‘Make America Nice Once more’ he’ll be inadvertently selling Musk’s social gathering,” the paper wrote.
This can be a sea-change from the beforehand optimistic protection in Russia of the Trump administration. Again in March, a political scientist instructed Izvestia that “America now has extra in widespread with Russia than Washington does with Brussels or Kyiv”.
In Might, the enterprise each day Kommersant declared: “Donald Trump’s stance could not be extra advantageous to Moscow.
“He refused to strengthen sanctions towards Russia and confirmed his willpower to develop large-scale commerce with Russia.”
The optimism was comprehensible. Earlier this 12 months, the White House was publicly criticising President Zelensky (not President Putin) and exerting strain on Kyiv (not Moscow).
The US and Russia had launched bilateral talks to spice up their relations.
What’s extra, President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was a frequent customer to Russia for talks with President Putin. At certainly one of their conferences the Kremlin chief gave him a gift to take again for Trump: a portrait of the US president.
It appeared as if Moscow and Washington have been destined to forge a brand new relationship.
But it surely’s been greater than two months since Witkoff’s last visit. And, in June, Russia introduced that the US had cancelled the subsequent spherical of talks between the 2 nations aimed toward restoring the operations of diplomatic missions.
In the meantime, President Trump has, it appears, been rising more and more pissed off by Russia’s refusal to comply with a complete ceasefire in Ukraine.
“The Kremlin believes that Trump presents Russia too little and, due to this fact, the continuation of a ‘good quarrel’ is healthier than a ‘unhealthy peace’ from the perspective of Russia’s long-term nationwide pursuits,” wrote Moskovsky Komsomolets at the moment.
In different phrases, on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin needs greater than Trump has been ready to supply.
Extra when it comes to territory, extra when it comes to concessions from Kyiv on the longer term dimension of Ukraine’s military, extra when it comes to chopping again Western arms provides to Kyiv.
And, to borrow a Trumpian expression, Vladimir Putin clearly believes that “he holds the playing cards” proper now and may maintain out for a greater deal.
Is he proper? Or is Moscow miscalculating?
A lot will rely on what President Trump does subsequent: on the dimensions of future US army help to Ukraine, and on whether or not the White Home decides to strengthen sanctions towards Russia.
However be mindful my caveat.
And that vivid picture, in Komsomolskaya Pravda, of Donald Trump altering his sneakers.
Solely every week in the past Russian commentators have been celebrating the US authorities’s determination to freeze some army help to Ukraine.
So, comply with carefully. Not solely what Donald Trump says on Russia and Ukraine, however the motion he takes.
