Russia, brushing off Obama, looks to a friendlier Trump
Putin: Won’t retaliate for now
HONOLULU — Stung by new punishments, Russia is looking past President Barack Obama to Donald Trump in hopes the president-elect will reverse the tough U.S. stance toward Moscow of the past eight years. In a stunning embrace of a longtime U.S. adversary, Trump is siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Whether Trump steers the U.S. toward or away from Russia upon taking office is shaping up as the first major test of his foreign policy disposition and his willingness to buck fellow Republicans, who for years have argued Obama wasn’t tough enough. Now that Obama has finally sanctioned Russia over hacking allegations, Putin has essentially put relations on hold till Trump takes over.
“Great move on delay (by V. Putin),” Trump wrote Friday on Twitter. “I always knew he was very smart!”
He was referring to Putin’s announcement that Russia won’t immediately retaliate after Obama ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies, closed two Russian compounds and expelled 35 diplomats the U.S. said were really spies. Though Putin reserved the right to hit back later, he suggested that won’t be necessary with Trump in office.
Brushing off Obama, Putin said Russia would plan steps to restore U.S. ties “based on the policies that will be carried out by the administration of President D. Trump.” Not only would Russia not kick Americans out, Putin said, he was inviting the children of all U.S. diplomats to the Kremlin’s New Year’s party.
“At this point, they’re trolling Obama,” said Olga Oliker, who directs the Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Obama administration said it had seen Putin’s remarks but had nothing more to say.
Trump’s move to side with a foreign adversary over the sitting U.S. president was a striking departure from typical diplomatic practice. In a sign he wanted maximum publicity, Trump pinned the tweet to the top of his Twitter page so it would remain there indefinitely.
Russia denies the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that in an attempt to help Trump win the presidency, Moscow orchestrated cyberbreaches in which tens of thousands of Democrats’ emails were stolen and later made public. Trump, too, has refused to accept that conclusion, though he has agreed to meet next week with intelligence leaders to learn more.
Notably, after the U.S. on Thursday issued a report it said exposed Russia’s cybertactics, Putin’s aides didn’t offer any specific rebuttal. The report included detailed technical information like IP addresses and samples of malware code the U.S. said Russia uses.
There’s little certainty about how Trump will act on Russia once he takes office Jan. 20. Though he’s praised Putin as a strong leader and said it would be ideal for the two countries to stop fighting, he has also suggested that the U.S. might mount a new nuclear arms race, triggering fresh anxieties about a return to Cold War-style tensions.
Ambassador Michael McFaul, Obama’s former envoy to Russia, said that although Trump has defined his top objective as “getting along with the Kremlin,” Putin has higher goals, including the lifting of economic sanctions and, ideally, U.S. recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.