Putin - Trump: the beginning

Vladimir Putin held the first telephone conversation with the President-elect of the United States Donald Trump. Putin wished his future counterpart success in implementing the election program and noted readiness to build a collaborative dialogue with the new administration on the bases of equality, mutual respect and noninterference in each other’s internal affairs.

Next year will mark the 210th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States, which, according to Moscow, will prompt the sides to get back to cooperation. According to the Kremlin's assessment, Putin and Trump not only fell in on the assessment of the extremely unsatisfactory state of the Russian-US relations, but also spoke in favor of active joint efforts toward their normalization and bringing them into the track of constructive cooperation, in particular by developing the trade-and-economic component. Putin and Trump agreed that it is necessary to pool efforts against major common enemy — international terrorism and extremism. In this context, they discussed the settlement of the Syrian crisis. Putin and Trump agreed to continue telephone contacts with a possible one-on-one meeting in the future.

Many in Moscow were optimistic about Trump's victory. "Why was there such a joy? Why were they applauding in the State Duma? Why is everyone experiencing positive emotions? Because we are tired of the hard anti-Russian course, which was conducted by the previous US presidents," the head of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Communication with Compatriots, Leonid Slutsky, said.

"In recent years, our overseas partners, 'strategic friends', as I call them, decided to marginalize the image of Russia, deform the image of Russia in the world information space, and then on the political arena. And we intuitively associate a possible change with Trump. Only time can tell whether it will be qualitative or partial, but we want to feel that hope," the MP said.

At the same time, he acknowledged that there is no 'magic switch', which could quickly change the situation in the relations between Moscow and Washington: "Over the recent years, a considerable amount of controversy has accumulated between our countries, and it would be difficult to get rid of them in a short period of time, even if we both wanted to. We can cautiously hope for a more constructive position in the relations between our countries, in Washington's attitude towards Moscow, since our position towards Washington has always been constructive".

Slutsky was encouraged by some of Trump’s post-election statements. "In particular, Syria-related ones, where he said that we need to fight ISIS, not Assad. This is a fundamental change in the White House policy that claims that Assad is a bloody butcher, which must be annihilated at any price," the MP reminded.

According to him, "Trump may strengthen policy of detente in Europe in the near future and convince NATO to withdraw from our borders."