Translated material
BuzzFeed: Russia offered Trump an 'unrealistic' plan to normalize relations
In March 2017, the Russian authorities proposed to the US presidential administration a plan that would involve the full restoration of relations between the countries. This is reported by BuzzFeed, which obtained the document.
The document envisaged a series of meetings and consultations between representatives of the Russian Federation and the United States, devoted to a wide range of topics - from information security (this meeting, where Russia would be represented by the adviser to the President of the Russian Federation Andrei Krutskikh, was proposed to be held in April) and "mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of trade and investment" to the situation in Ukraine and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
By the time of the meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, according to this plan, the heads of the military departments and intelligence agencies of both countries were also to hold consultations, the newspaper writes.
A senior State Department source called Russia's expectations of a normalization of relations "unrealistic"; According to him, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in July confirmed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that a larger-scale improvement of relations is impossible without Russia's efforts to normalize the situation in Ukraine.
A spokesman for the National Security Council told BuzzFeed that Russia may have deemed the terms of the offer acceptable more because of media reports of Trump's positive attitude towards the Russian Federation than on the basis of the actions of the US administration.
What exactly was the administration's reaction to this proposal is not clear from the publication - representatives of the White House and the State Department told BuzzFeed that they did not tell Russia about the feasibility of this plan. It follows from the article, at the same time, that some of the meetings proposed by Russia took place.
In addition to learning about areas where the Kremlin wanted to improve relations between the two countries, the plan reveals Moscow's unspoken perception that Trump does not share US anger at Moscow's alleged meddling in the 2016 election and will be ready for a lightning-fast rapprochement.
- Relations between Russia and the United States, which worsened in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea to Russia and the start of the war in Ukraine, deteriorated sharply in 2016. One of the reasons was the war in Syria, where countries support different forces, the other was the alleged interference of Russia in the course of the presidential elections in the United States.
- The new American president, Donald Trump, whose victory, according to the US, Russia tried to contribute to, has repeatedly spoken of his intention to try to restore relations with the Russian Federation. After his victory, the Russian authorities also said that they were counting on improving relations with the United States.
- In the summer of 2017, the US Congress adopted new sanctions against Russia, which, in particular, limited the president's right to lift sanctions. After that, Russia demanded that the United States reduce the staff of diplomatic missions and deprived the United States of an embassy dacha (in fact, this was a response to the sanctions adopted under Barack Obama in December 2016); The United States responded by closing the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco and two other diplomatic institutions in New York and Washington.