With the exception of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t have many friends or associates left in the West. Whereas some leaders in Europe were willing to give him an opportunity to make his case for better relations, Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine has significantly limited Moscow’s freedom of action. Bridges with the West have essentially burned down. Even the European Union, previously content with gobbling up Russian oil and natural gas, is moving away from Russia in the energy sphere; according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, EU imports of Russian gas are down by half this year.
The U.S.-Russia relationship, to put it charily, is a dumpster fire. About a year and a half ago, President Joe Biden and Putin shook hands with each other with stern faces in Geneva and came away from the summit guardedly optimistic that ties could be stabilized. Today, the tone is one of icy contempt, with Putin blasting Biden for orchestrating a campaign to permanently weaken Russia and Biden (rightly) labeling the Russian strongman an aggressor who wants to wipe out Ukrainian identity. White House aides are working hard to ensure Biden and Putin’s paths don’t cross during the Nov. 15-16 G-20 summit in Indonesia.
The personal relationship at the top is in many ways a microcosm of the overall relationship at the state-to-state level. It’s a struggle to find any area of policy convergence between Washington and Moscow. Arms control, that most important of topics, is dormant, with the Biden administration having suspended talks a day after Russia began lobbing missiles at Ukrainian cities. The U.S. and Russian delegations at the United Nations Security Council blame each other for every sin. The war in Ukraine is bleeding into other policy issues as well: Russia is not as constructive in the Iran nuclear talks as it once was, no doubt a consequence of Moscow doing everything possible to complicate a key U.S. policy objective in retaliation for Washington’s $18 billion in military support for Kyiv.
