February 3, 2017

In case anyone thinks Putin isn’t getting exactly what he wants from Trump…

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In case anyone thinks that Vladimir Putin is not convinced that he is going to get everything he wants from Donald Trump – an end to sanctions, deference to Russia’s claim of a sphere of influence over the former Soviet space and much else – a Russian television broadcast last evening should convince them of that fact.

On his weekly program, Dmitry Kiselyov, the Russian host who not so long ago talked about Russia’s ability to reduce the United States to a pile of radioactive rubble, positively reviewed the Trump administration and declared that Russia and the U.S. have “always cooperated in difficult times” (rusmonitor.com/pavel-pryanikov-dmitrijj-kiseljov-napominaet-chto-rossiya-i-ssha-v-slozhnye-momenty-vsegda-byli-druzyami-i-soyuznikami.html).

Given the central role of state television in Mr. Putin’s regime, such a statement was clearly intended to send two important signals to Russians: Russian-American cooperation is back now that Mr. Trump is president, and this cooperation will take the form first and foremost of a combined military effort against ISIS in the Middle East.

 

Paul Goble is a long-time specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia who has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau, as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The article above is reprinted with permission from his blog called “Window on Eurasia” (http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/).

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