US-Russian relations in 2015 are likely to see more of Washington trying to maintain a precarious balancing act between expressing indignation at Russian expansionism and keeping the relationship cordial enough to keep the lines of communication open, providing Putin a face-saving way out of Ukraine and his push to annex Novoya Rossiya, ‘New Russia.’
Background
As it currently stands, the only solid link between the two countries is between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, who enjoy a warm relationship and are in contact regularly. US President Barack Obama’s relationship with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is nearly non-existent. Obama has not met directly with Putin since October 2009, and is said, according to a recent Washington Post piece, to have gambled far too heavily that perceived moderate Dmitri Medvedev would remain in power and Putin would fall to the side lines.
This was the spirit in which the ill-fated ‘reset’ between Washington and Moscow was announced. However, after a year that saw Russia anger Washington and its European allies by invading Ukraine, dodging responsibility for the downing of MH 370, and refusing to hand over Edward Snowdon for prosecution in the United States, it would appear that the reset experiment has unequivocally failed.
Russia has its share of grievances, too. Moscow has viewed Washington’s repeated statements on domestic politics as a violation of the reset, with Moscow accusing the United States of giving a “signal” to opposition leaders after massive demonstrations in December 2011.
As late as October 2014, Putin blamed the West for supporting “the terrorist invasion of Russia” by providing terror networks with information and financial support to infiltrate the country. When the West responded to the invasion of Ukraine – which Moscow still maintains it played no part in, despite ample evidence of Russian soldiers at the front – with sanctions, Putin responded by blaming the West for the destruction of the Russian economy.
