Hopes dim in Moscow over Trump warming Russia ties

MOSCOW: After Donald Trump won the US election the Kremlin joked that it partied for three days — but now hope that the US will go softer on Moscow seems to be fading.
On his way to the White House, Trump praised President Vladimir Putin and pledged to improve ties that had plunged to a post-Cold War low as Barack Obama slapped on sanctions over Ukraine and election interference.
US intelligence even went so far as to accuse Putin of personally ordering a hacking and influence campaign to get the former reality star elected.
But now, in the face of growing heat over its links to Moscow, Trump’s administration appears to be backing off his earlier warm words — and for Russian officials that is proving unsettling.
The resignation Monday by Trump’s security adviser Michael Flynn, a key proponent of better ties with the Kremlin, over contacts with the Russian government sparked dismay among lawmakers in Moscow.
Then in another blow, White House spokesman Sean Spicer insisted Trump “has been incredibly tough on Russia” and “made it very clear that he expects the Russian government to... return Crimea” to Ukraine.
“Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia?” Trump tweeted in a follow up on Wednesday.
The latest statements come ahead of a first meeting between new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Germany on Thursday.
The Kremlin has insisted that it is still very early days for the Trump administration and the two sides can patch up their tattered ties.
“Let’s not rush things... we must wait until the first contacts,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We are still expecting that contacts will get back on track.”
With the FBI also probing Trump’s circle over ties to Moscow, Peskov dismissed fresh reports about contacts between his campaign and Russian officials as “falsehoods and fabrications.”
Flynn’s dismissal was a US domestic issue, he repeated.
But the tougher signals from Washington have still stung.
For Moscow any criticism over Ukraine, where it denies overwhelming evidence it sent troops and arms to help rebels, is a major sore point — and questioning the status of Crimea is taboo.
A top lawmaker called Spicer’s statement a “cold shower” for those hoping for a quick improvement in ties.
“We don’t return our territories,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Early reactions in Moscow to Trump’s presidential victory bordered on euphoria: the State Duma broke into applause upon the news of the election outcome.
Peskov said in December, half-jokingly, that the Kremlin “partied for three days” after Trump’s win, and that “any hope on anything positive (in US-Russia relations) or anything constructive makes people euphoric.”
The mood was palpably different Wednesday, as Vedomosti business daily wrote that Flynn was a key influence on Trump who supported working with Moscow.
His departure “may considerably decrease Moscow’s hopes that sanctions will be lifted,” it said in an editorial.
“One should not have expected that Trump would go against the political elite in his country in the beginning of his presidential career,” Leonid Slutsky, the head of the parliament’s foreign relations committee, told Interfax news agency.
Russia’s parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin was also disappointed that the US president is not following through on promises of friendlier relations with Moscow.
“When people are elected, they are elected by citizens for specific promises, for methods and approaches to problems,” he told Interfax, and Trump was elected because he talked about “rebuilding relations with Russia,” among other things.
“If he goes back on his campaign promises, that would be a question for him,” added Volodin, who previously served as Putin’s chief of staff.
“One should follow his pre-election program, and the program talked about regulating relations with Russia, China,” said Volodin. “When they start carrying out the program it will all be okay.”

-- AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE