While Vladimir V. Putin seems to be able to maneuver Donald Trump, the American President?
The NY Times points out something that President Obama said out loud a while ago….
Russia, with all it’s nukes and military adventurism is still a relatively poor economic country…On lists of countries by GDP it is 11 place , behind even South Korea on one listing….
After Putin made the move annex the Crimea from the Ukraine the United States , the European Union and others leveled economic sanctions against Russia….
They HAVE stayed in place even as Trump dances with Putin in private…
(Trump has the added problem of a Special Prosocutor digging up the ground underneath him for evidence of how Putin worked to help him get his current job…)
Putin efforts have been stymied because others besides Trump have NOT embraced the American President’s view of the Russian leader and are holding fast against letting up on him…
This is acting as a counter balance against Trump…
It is souring Putin’s approval with his own countrymen/women….
Putin doesn’t have to worry about holding power like a leader in a democracy….
But he has to be be very aware of his numbers like any leader….
Despite his efforts?
It seems like America….
And the Europeans…..
Have NOT backed of his case, even with his efforts to co-op an American President….
Mr. Putin has failed to persuade or pressure the West to lift successive waves of American and European economic sanctions imposed on Russia since its 2014 annexation of Crimea. In fact, the State Department threatened last week to enact yet another round of such measures, just days after the United States Senate brandished its own.
The European Union, some of whose members had signaled in the past few years that they were ready to consider granting Moscow some relief, has similarly held tough on sanctions, especially in the wake of the British government’s finding that Russia was responsible for an attempted assassination on British soil using a banned nerve agent.
The failure to make progress in freeing the Russian economy from the sanctions is a setback for Mr. Putin both at home and abroad.
In Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin and some in the Kremlin thought that they had a get-out-of-sanctions-free card. Despite the lack of concrete agreements, the first summit meeting between the two leaders, in Helsinki, Finland, last month, reinforced Russian expectations that the American president would fulfill his campaign promise to mend ties.
“Many hoped that the Helsinki summit would reset U.S.-Russia relations, and if not help lift the existing sanctions, then at least avoid further rounds,” Maria Snegovaya, a United States-based Russia analyst and columnist for the Vedomosti newspaper, wrote in an email.
Much to the Kremlin’s dismay, however, the Trump administration has developed into a kind of Pushmi-Pullyu of the diplomatic world, acting toward Russia something like the two-headed llama of Dr. Doolittle fame. One head, in the form of Mr. Trump, repeatedly promises improved ties with Moscow, while the other, representing senior officials in his own administration and bipartisan sentiment in Congress, growls about new sanctions and other chastisements.
In Moscow, the policy zigzags prompted both confusion and anger as the Kremlin floundered to respond….
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“People are saying, ‘Please maintain Russia as a great power, but not at the expense of our income,’….
image…CNBC.Com