Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced that Moscow supports a full-scale restoration of the relations with the United States.
“Russia wants a full scale restoration of the relationship with the United States. It will depend on both the U.S. and Russia, but I think the President of the United States is definitely trying to establish a very positive relationship. And as you know contacts between special services of Russia and the U.S. have been established, I hope that this contact will be very helpful for both sides and bring a very positive result.”
The back-channel communications with the American intelligence services are continuing — a track that quietly persisted even as the public diplomatic relationship between the two countries was frozen through the Biden era.
By placing equal responsibility for the pace of normalization on both governments, Putin frames the situation as one of mutual readiness — a government that is prepared to negotiate should Washington choose to engage.
Putin appeared to grasp the essence of the Trump administration’s America First doctrine and its desire for a broader geopolitical realignment — one that would allow Washington to focus its strategic attention on China, which poses a far more serious long-term threat than Russia ever has to core American interests.
Putin also noted that Russia has “many friends” in the United States — a statement the Western press will twist, but which reflects an obvious reality: a significant portion of the American public, particularly on the populist right, has never accepted the Cold War premise that Russia is an existential threat to America.
Normalization will take time. Sanctions, frozen assets, proxy conflicts, and institutional resistance on both sides will not dissolve overnight. But the door has been opened by Putin today — and it is now up to Washington to step through it.
