Nov 21, 2016

US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met Nov. 20 on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Peru. The four-minute conversation is most likely to be the last meeting between Putin and Obama in Obama's capacity as president of the United States, though Putin invited Obama to visit Russia “any time at his convenience.” The brief encounter focused on the two issues that have been shaping the overall agenda for US-Russia relations in the last couple of years — Ukraine and Syria. While both lamented “the absence of progress” on the Ukrainian track, statements on Syria signaled the goals and expectation each party had vis-a-vis the other.

As Obama emphasized the need for Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to “continue pursuing initiatives together with the broader international community to diminish the violence and alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people," Putin pointed out that the "remaining two months of [Obama's presidency] should be used for the continuation of the search for a Syrian settlement." The dialectic of the statements was: Although the parties perceive each other as untrustworthy, both share a need to preserve a political will to selectively cooperate.

Neither Moscow nor Washington, however, is really expecting a breakthrough until the new US administration takes office. “Obama is a lame duck, and in the months left before [Donald] Trump’s inauguration he will be busy sealing his legacy rather than willing to invest his capital into something particularly challenging such as Syria, which ultimately may end up into yet another failure,” a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Al-Monitor.

Moscow is indeed hopeful that the new administration in the White House will prioritize the fight against terrorism and extremism and that joint dealings on Syria may culminate in a real cooperation. The spectrum of possible US-Russia interactions discussed in the Russian expert community varies from intelligence sharing between the respective agencies to coordinated joint military airstrikes to even a joint offensive on Raqqa sometime next year — a notable action to mark 210 years of US-Russia diplomatic relations that Putin and President-elect Trump noted in their phone conversation a week ago. Yet, amid enthusiastic coverage of the Trump election victory by the majority — if not all — of the Russian media, Putin himself signaled a more cautious stance. Speaking after the APEC summit, he said, “We all know there’s a big difference — in all countries — between campaign promises and real policies.” Besides, when asked about his first possible meeting with Trump after he becomes president, Putin suggested that “it makes sense for the two teams to meet first.”

Coupled with Russia’s actions on the ground in Syria, this vision gives an idea of what the Kremlin is up to in the remaining months. Thinking of possible systemic factors that would limit Trump’s desire to “normalize ties” with Russia, Moscow is closely looking at the recent activities in the US Congress — both the new sanctions package on Syria passed in the House and the potential “anti-Russian legislation” discussed in the Senate. Among Russian decision-makers, the initiatives are viewed as on the one hand an attempt to narrow corridors of opportunity for “Trump’s foreign policy experiments,” and on the other as an intent to set certain “red lines” for Trump in how far he can go in his “deals” with the Kremlin.