Helena Izotova
According to The Daily Telegraph observer Con Coughlin, even if Donald Trump used to seek ways to improve the relations with Russia, today he is probably going to really abandon this idea. The thing is that not so long ago, the U.S. hit a Syrian fight jet, the one belonging to Bashar Asad’s troop. Since Putin and Asad are allies, this fact is definitely going to affect the process of improving the U.S.-Russia relations, and probably suspend this process for the near future.
As you probably know, during his election campaign and over the first few months after moving to the While House, Donald Trump used to talk a lot about the importance of improving the relations with Putin and cooperating with Russia. Now, those plans are likely doomed, the observer says. President Trump is still suspected of close ties with the Kremlin, which puts extra pressure on him.
At the same time, a couple of days ago, the Senate almost unanimously approved a new mechanism of imposing and regulating sanctions against Russia. This is another point of concern between Washington and Moscow on top of the Crimea, Donbass, Syria and other issues.
It seems like Putin decided to back Asad no matter what, which is why he won’t forgive the USA the recent incident with the Syrian jet. Russia’s first step to react to the incident was to abandon the memorandum offered by the USA to avoid incidents in the Syrian airspace. This may escalate the confrontation since Russia and the USA have different goals in Syria. While the USA wants to destroy the ISIS, Russia also wants to fight the ISIS but in reality the Kremlin is interested in expanding Russia’s military presence in the region. This is what they need Asad as the last ally in the region.
Helena Izotova
