“Trump rejected the idea of holding a separate meeting early due to fear of hysteria by his enemies in the USA,” Mr. Pushkov wrote on Twitter after the latest telephone call.

Naturally, the idea that Presidents Trump and Putin are equals has not died entirely, either. “The third contact between the two presidents has confirmed that the Russian-American dialogue is not at a standstill, that both sides are interested in its development, and that it can proceed only on an equal footing,” Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the Federation Council, told Russian reporters on Wednesday, according to RIA Novosti, the state-operated news agency.

Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is expected to hold talks with Mr. Tillerson on the sidelines of an Arctic conference in Alaska next week, talks that the Russians are hoping might bring some clarity.

There are things the Russians want, like the withdrawal of the American missile defense system in Romania and Poland, but nothing so specific has been broached. Mr. Trump’s effusive praise of the Russian leader while running for president has slowly faded as other issues have come to the fore, including multiple investigations into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential campaign and the stark differences over Syria’s use of chemical weapons against its own people again in April.

On the other hand, Mr. Frolov noted, the Kremlin appreciates that the Trump administration has been largely silent on Russian domestic issues like violence against opposition leaders, arrests of political protesters and the persecution and torture of homosexuals in Chechnya.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was not so reticent in her joint news conference with Mr. Putin on Tuesday, questioning the prosecution of civil society groups, homosexuals and religious sects while pooh-poohing Mr. Putin’s stance that the change of government in neighboring Ukraine had been undemocratic.

The more discreet American approach indicates that Washington wants to keep channels open, Mr. Frolov said, so the Kremlin will most likely welcome a one-by-one approach to foreign policy issues rather than a grand bargain.