The worsening diplomatic crisis between Russia and the United States should not surprise anyone. A weakened American President forced to admit that his attempt to start a dialogue between Moscow and Washington failed.
It seems that Russian leader Vladimir Putin hoped to the last that his American counterpart, Donald trump will be able to begin to thaw in the cool relations between the US and Russia. But it’s obvious now that Putin has abandoned this idea, at least for a while.
The stated purpose of the tramp was to renew relations with Moscow — met with opposition in Congress and in the presidential administration.
Last week the us Congress almost unanimously decided to extend anti-Russian sanctions as punishment for the annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula of Crimea in 2014, as well as interference in the American election campaign in 2016. The decision was taken outside parties, and was supported by such a powerful majority, that the President could not block the law, imposing its veto.
At the weekend Russia said Putin has said that the number of American diplomats in the country will be limited to 455 — that is how many Russian diplomats are in the US. According to Putin, in the Wake of the country will be sent to 755 diplomats, although there is no precise data about whether the actual numbers are so large.
Putin hoped that trump would fulfill a campaign promise of the thaw.
Russian response can be seen as a belated response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats 35 in December, the last month of Barack Obama in the White house. If Russia did not take retaliatory measures, and the new President of the trump praised it, according to him, smart decision. At that time, Putin has restrained himself because he was counting on the fact that trump is coming into place Obama in a few weeks, will fulfill a campaign promise and begin the thaw.
As it turned out, it was a remarkable miscalculation by the Kremlin as the White house.
Scandalous details, and numerous investigations of Russian attempts to manipulate elections in the United States against Hillary Clinton, has complicated the desire to trump friendliness.
Direct talks this summer, also gave the leaders desired. However, it seemed that the first meeting face to face on 7 July on the sidelines of the summit of “Twenty” in Hamburg was held in a gracious environment. But the summit did not bring any concrete results in any of the important issues — in the Syrian issue (let trump and boasted a partial truce in one of the regions of a country at war), or in Ukrainian or anti-Russian sanctions.
The situation did not improve and the fact that Kurt Volker (Kurt Volker), US special envoy to Ukraine last week made clear that the US was thinking to start supplying the Ukrainians “lethal” weapons. And now the extension of sanctions.
Trump will continue to build relations with Russian? This is an important question. Begs an answer: with the same unpredictability. On Monday, Vice-President Mike Pence (Mike Pence) said during a visit to Estonia that “the President has made it clear that the destabilizing activities of Russia, its aid to evil regimes and activities in Ukraine is unacceptable”.
Just not clear what are these words, given that trump has never expressed any criticism of Russia. Another important question: what will happen next will Putin do? One can imagine a number of measures directly against the United States, but primarily against other Western interests. Analysts speak about “asymmetrical response”, for example in the form of strengthening of the military pressure on Ukraine.
It opens the door to further deterioration of relations between Russia and the USA the situation is directly opposite to what Putin and trump was hoping in January.
