Moscow — this week in Russia, an amazing thing happened: President trump, who recently appeared in all the talk shows and the evening news on TV, spreading the propaganda of the Kremlin, suddenly it was gone.
“It’s like someone flipped a switch,” said Alexei Kovalev, a journalist of the newspaper Moscow Times, which wrote about the Russian state media.
To understand why it happened, it is easy. The administration of a trump, covered by the scandals of the contacts of its senior representatives with Russian officials tried to pull away from the Kremlin.
In just one week, Washington has complained that Russia violated the nuclear agreement in 1987, and accused the Kremlin of meddling in the elections in various countries. As a result of these scandals, the US presidential Advisor on national security issues, favorably refers to Moscow, was forced to resign. The tone of trump’s statements on issues such as the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia, have tightened considerably.
From the point of view of the Russians, it had to go anyway.
U.S. intelligence Agency believe that Russian hackers, who received the order from President Vladimir Putin, tried to help Trump to win over Hillary Clinton, as the Russian authorities were confident that this businessman is a little more friendly attitude to Russia. The Kremlin rejects these accusations.
If this is true, what Russian have? Moscow is very angry when this week the Minister of defense of Jim Mattis (Jim Mattis) said that Washington is negotiating with Moscow on an “position of strength”. As if the Obama administration did not go anywhere.
“It was a disappointment for many people, — said Vladimir Posner, an influential Russian journalist and presenter of the programme on Russian state channel. — Along with frustration comes anger. Why [tramp] lied to us? Why would he make us think that the situation can improve?”
The election trump caused a real euphoria in Moscow. This is partly due to the joy in connection with the defeat of Clinton, the worst enemy of Putin. However, it has also become a reflection of the promises of the administration to trump Moscow saw an opportunity to make deals with the American President, which will allow Russia to consolidate power in the region and to regain the status of a great power.
Part of the rhetoric against Russia is a reflection of the fact that officials of the U.S. diplomatic and military services continue to insist on their standard positions, such as, for example, the assertion that Russia is violating the Treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range. (Russia denies the accusation.)
Amid the intensifying scandals in Washington have also changed the tone of trump’s statements about Russia, which during the election campaign were softer. In August, in an interview on ABC, trump said that he “will consider” the annexation of Crimea by Russia, adding: “Judging from what I’ve heard, the people of Crimea chose to become part of Russia, not the country where they were”.
But on Wednesday, February 15, trump tweeted: “Russia took Crimea in the period of the Obama administration. Obama is not taking too soft a stance against Russia?” On Tuesday, February 14, his spokesman Sean Spicer (Sean Spicer) said that the President expects that Russia will return Crimea to Ukraine — this is the position taken by the Obama administration and its European allies.
Meanwhile, several congressional committees are currently conducting an investigation of alleged ties between representatives of the election headquarters trump with Russia, which further complicates the task of the new administration, declaring the intention to change US policy towards Russia.
Is the honeymoon of Russia and the tramp come to an end?
The Kremlin behaves as if this honeymoon never happened. Compared to ordinary MPs and other officials, senior representatives of Putin’s administration was much more restrained in its public statements regarding trump, noting that they are glad of the change of the nature of the rhetoric, but do not expect a dramatic change in the US position.
Instead of criticizing trump for tougher position against Moscow, Russia just decided to turn it off. His statements about Crimea was named the consequence of pressure from political opponents. Even before the election, Putin and his colleagues talked about the fact that the Washington establishment will try to stop Trump to develop a closer relationship with Moscow. Now they claim that it all happened.
“All are disappointed in the scandals that accompany the administration of a trump, and the scale of war, which against it are Congress, the media, political and foreign policy establishment, — said Dmitry Suslov, Professor of the National University “Higher school of Economics”. Is the pressure really limits the administration at the moment”.
However, according to him, even if the administration trump takes a hostile attitude towards Russia, the situation will be no worse than if the victory was won by Clinton.
Morning after winning trump in the elections of deputies of the State Duma drank champagne in his honor. Now that the euphoria has passed. Vyacheslav Volodin, a former close aide to Putin, now occupying the position of speaker of Parliament, complained this week that trump is not fulfilling his campaign promises regarding Russia. One Russian MP said that Washington is so widespread Russophobia that the willingness to dialogue there is equivalent to Orwellian thoughtcrime.
Russian news TV program showed little interest in the scandals surrounding the contact assistants trump and Russian officials, including telephone conversations between the former Advisor for national security Michael Flynn (as Michael Flynn) and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, who allegedly discussed the issue of us sanctions against Russia.
Russian news also failed to mention the series of steps that American politicians consider a provocation by Russia, including the incident with the overflight of an American warship stationed in the Black sea, a Russian military aircraft.
The sudden disappearance of the tramp of Russian news, most likely, not accidental.
Wednesday, February 15, journalist Konstantin Eggert said that his colleague in the state media Agency, the company received from the management Directive: “no More trump.” Later, Bloomberg News reported, citing unnamed sources, that the Kremlin ordered state news agencies to reduce the share flattering stories about trump.
According to Eggert, he believes that the Kremlin has decided to cease to pay much attention to Trump because of the growing pressure on the American President, but also because of the low probability of a breakthrough in relations between the two countries in the near future.
“Raise expectations on the basis of the idea of an inevitable convergence of the US and Russia is an unreasonable position for the Kremlin, since these expectations cannot be translated into reality, said Eggert. — Therefore, the Kremlin propaganda machine will reduce the share of news about the United States and the trump as long as the situation in Washington did not clear up”.
According to Eggert, the Kremlin is unlikely to greatly surprised that trump is somewhat cooled toward Russia.
“I think that Putin has long been ready to accept the fact that the situation would not change immediately — even if it will change,” he added.
The Kremlin denies the information that he dictates to the media how and what to highlight. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it another “fake news.”
Thursday, February 16, during the press conference, trump made it clear that, in his opinion, hysteria about contact his aides with Russia influenced the relations with this country.
Such reports “greatly complicate the task for a deal with Russia,” said trump. “And maybe… Putin sits at his Desk and says: I understand what is happening in the United States, I am monitoring this closely; President trump will never be able to get along with Russia because of the pressure he is under because of these false articles”.
Unlike some deputies, the Kremlin probably did not expect any abrupt changes in the relations between the two countries in the first weeks of the administration of the trump. But this does not mean that he didn’t expect.
“Perhaps those who make the decisions, was less inclined to lay too much hope on the election trump, but hope they still had, said Posner. Now these hopes, obviously, had collapsed.”
