Trump and Putin: A relationship where mutual admiration is headed toward reality

Putin and his advisers have spoken about a desire to improve relations, although there is no Kremlin expectation that Inauguration Day will bring an overnight change. While pleased by the direction in which Trump appears to be moving, Moscow sees “policy incoherence” so far from the president-elect, said Thomas Graham, who served as senior Russia director on George W. Bush’s National Security Council staff and is now managing director at Kissinger Associates…

But however disjointed and contradictory his shorthand policy prescriptions have seemed so far, “the vision in the Kremlin is that even though Trump is a novice in foreign policy, he has a record of striking deals that benefit him, as well as a team of experienced advisers,” said Maxim A. Suchkov, an analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, a Moscow think tank…

“Putin will play this as Obama acting like a deranged and spiteful madman, while Trump is a real gentleman who needs to be treated like a gent by Russia,” Frolov said of Putin’s low-key response to the sanctions and expulsions. The Russian president “does not want to do anything that would make it even harder for Trump to move positively on Russia,” he said.

Others detected a more nefarious strategy at work in Putin’s gambit. “I think it’s brilliant,” said Steve Hall, who ran Russia operations for the CIA before his retirement in 2015. “It solidifies the relationship and plays straight to Trump’s ego. It allows Trump to say, ‘See, the Obama administration is behaving childishly, and we need to act much more professionally.’”