“Russia wants to lower expectations on the future relations with the U.S. because it is afraid of being disappointed,” said Alexei Makarkin, vice president of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow think thank.
Makarkin said that some in Moscow are imagining something similar to the U.S.-Soviet detente in the mid-1970s, when the two nuclear superpowers tried to make deals against the backdrop of Cold War competition. That’s quite a comedown, but it reflects the words of Marine Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia is one of the nation’s top threats and that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.”…
“The Kremlin has good reasons to worry that the combination of two scandals — on the hacking and on the dossier — has pushed Trump into an ugly corner,” Baev said. “He may conclude that since it is so hard to block the anti-Russia drive, it is far easier to take a lead on it. Makes perfect political sense, and one thing Trump is good at is making turnarounds.”
Baev suggested that some Putin advisers may argue in favor of allowing Trump a quick and impressive victory with Moscow, “instead of leaving him to explore options for going strong against Russia.”
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