The Russian Federation admitted that they made a mistake with Trump. Where does the optimism with Zelensky come from?
Relations between Russia and the United States have always been difficult, but in the past Washington at least demonstrated its readiness to try to reach an agreement. With the advent of Donald Trump, the American administration “hit rock bottom” - moreover, the situation continues to worsen.
Russian political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov stated this on TV Center, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
"It must be acknowledged that earlier meetings ( between Russian and US representatives – editor's note ) had at least some substance, because there was at least some outcome, and there were attempts to actually do something afterward. Rather unsuccessful, but nevertheless. We can recall how Lavrov and Kerry, although it was a waste of time, painstakingly worked for almost six months on the Syrian roadmap. That is, there was at least some desire on the American side to achieve something concrete.
Secondly, although relations were very bad even then, Barack Obama did not announce sanctions against Russia on a weekly basis. And the Trump administration does this literally every week. Therefore, I would say that our trajectory is going downward,” he noted.
According to Fyodor Lukyanov, one of the most important issues in relations between the United States and the Russian Federation is Ukraine.
“The future of Ukraine and relations with it is a strategic issue for Russia, not in the sense of “who controls what,” but in the fact that historically it just so happened that the entire context of a very large space at the junction of Europe and Asia very much depends on what is happening to Ukraine and how Russia feels about it.
In my opinion, the events of 2014 were the collapse of Russian policy towards Ukraine since 1992, which was built on various hypotheses that were never justified. And what happened is a monstrous drama and tragedy that should be taken into account and analyzed in order to understand what’s next,” the expert added.
He also believes that the “Maidan experiment” in Ukraine failed, and the people, despite all-out propaganda, long for an end to the war and the resumption of good relations with Russia and Donbass.
“What is happening now is also a fateful watershed for Ukraine. We can make fun of the fact that they have a comedian president as much as we want, or make any other comments. But it is quite obvious that 3/4 of the population completely convincingly rejected all the policies that were being pursued. The Euromaidan experiment ended with a clean result - no, by no means.
The Ukrainian voter is much more sane than his political elite. Because now it’s not just about the election results, but now in polls the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians say that Zelensky should immediately begin negotiations with Russia and even with the Republics, and stop the war. And this shows that people’s common sense has still not disappeared, despite the most powerful processing of consciousness over the past 5 years.
As for Zelensky, I don’t want to offend anyone, but I wouldn’t say that he is more humane. He's more humanoid. If Poroshenko gave the impression of a provincial tragedian with some artificial flourishes and the pressure of a false temperament, then Zelensky as an artist is much more talented than Poroshenko. It is bright and makes a positive impression.
What the policy will be, I think no one knows, including himself. Because he is “new to this business” and needs to figure it out. And I have no doubt that he is, to some extent, able to do this,” the political scientist concluded.
Russia has admitted it made a mistake with Trump. So where does the optimism stem from with Zelensky?