Vladimir Putin sees Trump as key to eased sanctions: Why that's important

President-elect Donald Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he looked forward to 'a strong and enduring relationship.'

|
Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP/File
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a Kremlin meeting in Moscow, July 26.

Russia's government denies that it tampered in the US election or even took sides. But now that the results are in, members of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party aren't holding back.

"It turns out that United Russia won the elections in America," Viktor Nazarov, the governor of Omsk, Russia, declared in a radio interview.

Long before Donald Trump was on the radar of American voters, Russia had deep interests in the outcome of elections around the world. But 2016 presented a unique window.

Motivated by years of crippling economic sanctions and decades of post-Soviet setbacks, the Russians were keener than ever to pounce; the race for the White House, plagued by party infighting and scandal, was easy bait.

For Mr. Putin, sanctions relief is a gateway to the ultimate goal of re-establishing Russia as the political and economic equivalent of the United States. President-elect Trump, who has extolled Putin's leadership and called for a tempered approach to US-Russia relations, may be a conduit to achieving that.

"It's much more about institutions, not about personalities," said Robert Amsterdam, an international attorney who has a number of high-profile Russian clients. Putin "was seriously impacted by the sanctions because it targeted his closest friends and now they think Trump is going to change that."

US intelligence agencies said in October they are confident that the Russian government hacked the e-mails of US citizens and institutions, including political organizations, and handed them over to DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks for distribution. Hacked Democratic National Committee emails in July, indicating that DNC leaders were favoring Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries, prompted the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

"Weaponizing information is really about who gets to write 'the truth' – who gets to write the narrative, and who benefits from that narrative – and that is incredibly powerful," said Laura Galante, director of intelligence analysis at cybersecurity firm FireEye, Inc.

Russia has sought to put itself on an equal footing with the US since the collapse of the Soviet Union, extending its territory where it can, countering US military action, and positioning itself as a rival to the world's biggest economy.

But its ambitions suffered a setback in 2014 when the Obama administration authorized sanctions against sectors of the Russian economy, including financial services, energy, mining and defense. The administration also sanctioned people in Putin's inner circle accused of undermining peace in Ukraine. Add to that falling oil prices and a weak ruble, and Russia's economy was shackled.

The impact has been extensive. Russia's sovereign wealth fund had $87 billion in assets in December 2013, according to the Russian Finance Ministry. As of June 1, it was down to $38 billion, following sell-offs by the Russian government to make up for budget deficits. US trade with Russia tumbled to $23 billion in 2015, from about $34 billion the previous year.

Sanctions that impede Russia's ability to acquire equipment for Arctic offshore drilling are of particular concern because they hold the key to Russia's rapid expansion in that sector.

"Lifting restrictions on exports of technology, software, things that really help their energy industry extract oil and gas" would be the top priority, said Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Production is dwindling over time, so they're going into new, offshore, deep-water drilling in the Arctic and so on, and to do that, they really need Western technology," he said.

Sanctions relief is important to Russia's broader objective of superpower status, shown by its bullish Syria policy. Syria's Russian-backed military made major gains in rebel-held eastern Aleppo in recent days and rebel resistance appeared to be crumbling. While Moscow and Washington are continuously at odds over Syria, the Obama administration has not imposed any Syria-related sanctions.

Trump's promise of closer cooperation with Russia has created worries that the US will have diminished leverage. He said during the campaign that under his leadership the US might not come to the defense of some NATO members if Russia were to attack them, indicating he would make that decision based on whether those Baltic republics "have fulfilled their obligations to us."

But Trump's positions are hard to assess because he's often stepped away from his more controversial proposals. Trump's choice as defense secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis, has called Russia's aggression in Ukraine a problem "much more severe, more serious" than Washington and the European Union are treating it.

Putin and Trump spoke soon after his victory and a statement from Trump's transition team said the president-elect told Putin he looked forward to "a strong and enduring relationship." Observers caution that Putin's interests are self-motivated and Russia's incentive to interfere in US politics won't go away with Trump's victory.

"It's not that Putin is against the Democratic Party," Zilberman said. "He's more against the United States and (for) whatever may push Russian interests."

He added: "There's nothing saying that next time they won't hack Republicans and expose Trump administration emails if it benefits them."

___

Associated Press writers James Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Vladimir Putin sees Trump as key to eased sanctions: Why that's important
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2016/1203/Vladimir-Putin-sees-Trump-as-key-to-eased-sanctions-Why-that-s-important
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe