Mr. Putin cannot expect any lifting of sanctions, which would require approval by Congress, or any swift American recognition of Crimea as part of Russia. They will also discuss Syria, particularly Iran’s presence there; arms control; and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, provoked in 2014 by Russia’s dispatch of arms and soldiers to support separatist rebels.

Ivan Kurilla, an expert on Russian-American relations at the European University at St. Petersburg, said that perhaps the most Mr. Putin could realistically expect from Mr. Trump was an agreement that their two countries would reopen consulates closed last year and that some of the Russian and American diplomats caught up in rounds of tit-for-tat expulsions would return to their posts.

Mr. Venediktov, the editor of Ekho Moskvy, said that Russia’s political elite blamed Mr. Trump’s failure to reach out to Mr. Putin earlier on America’s “deep state.” But he added that they had never entirely lost faith that the American president would one day come through and cut a deal.

“Russia is not disappointed with Trump, but disappointed that the American system does not give the same powers to the president as the Russian system does,” Mr. Venediktov said.

Putting relations on better footing, said Mr. Kurilla, the St. Petersburg scholar, is important for Mr. Putin but more so for Mr. Trump, who needs a more benign image of Russia to help stop his political opponents from using Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 American election to undermine his own legitimacy.

“He wants to bring home a message that Russia is not America’s enemy, not a diabolical power,” just as President Ronald Reagan did after his meetings in the 1980s with Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Kurilla said. “But he has miscalculated, because Putin is not like Gorbachev.”