Journalist Bob Woodward’s new book contains an explosive revelation: former president Donald J. Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin seven times since leaving office. Trump’s presidential campaign denied the charge. Nonetheless, his continuous praise for Putin has prompted fears that a re-elected Trump would help Russia achieve a favorable peace deal by halting aid to Ukraine.
This worry likely understates the danger lurking with regard to Russia should Trump regain power. The history of U.S.-Russia relations suggests that the former President is badly misreading Putin. During the Russian president’s 20-plus years at the highest levels of his country’s politics, flattery and high-level attention from American officials have simply emboldened Putin to push the boundaries of what the West will tolerate even further, inviting Russian aggression.
Bill Clinton was the first American president to grapple with Putin. In the mid-1990s, Clinton visited Saint Petersburg, Russia, which turned into “one of the worst stops" of his presidency because the Russian organizers of the trip kept him away from interacting with everyday people. Later, American diplomats told the president who was responsible for the decision: Putin, then Saint Petersburg’s little-known deputy mayor who had been a KGB counterespionage officer during the Cold War.
Two years later, Putin returned to the radar of American officials after a conversation between Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Igor Malashenko, a supporter of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Director of NTV, Russia’s first independent television station. Malashenko had dark premonitions about the future of Russia’s democracy in the aftermath of a financial crisis in 1998. Malashenko told Talbott that his country was most likely on a path toward “isolation and a xenophobic regime," albeit “a milder version” than had existed during the Soviet era. The television executive explained that one thing to watch was Putin’s career trajectory, which would be a test of which path Russia would choose. Russian liberals were warily eyeing the-now director of Russia’s internal security and counterintelligence service, who they feared had presidential ambitions and would lead Russia back to its past.
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