Russia proposes meeting as U.S. maintains sanctions

U.S. President Trump and Russian President Putin should “meet each other and exchange views” in order to build a relationship, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told American television on April 2. He said this moments after U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said she doesn’t trust Putin and that “there’s no love” in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

The U.S. and NATO continue to support the Ukrainian government in defending its territory and strengthening its economy against the backdrop of Russian aggression, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on March 31. NATO will never accept Russian actions that are aimed at changing Ukraine’s borders, he said, as reported on the U.S. State Department website. The organization will continue to support efforts to accelerate the fulfillment of the Minsk Accords, he said.

“We will continue to call upon Russia to fulfill its Minsk obligations,” he said, also calling up the Russian government to use its influence on the separatists to stop the violence and end the campaign of intimidating OSCE observers. “U.S. sanctions will remain in place until Moscow halts its actions that prompted our sanctions. We note with concern the escalation of violence along the conflict line and repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure by separatist forces supported by Russia, which creates a higher risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Zenon Zawada: Despite the election campaign hysteria, nothing has changed in U.S. foreign policy towards Ukraine since Trump has become president. We believe Trump would like to cut some deal with Putin. However, dramatically shifting U.S. foreign policy now would be disastrous as Trump is low on political capital. His recently sponsored healthcare reform campaign failed to gain enough support in the U.S. Congress and he needs to score some political victories.

We expect no change in U.S. foreign policy towards Russia until the autumn season, with the French presidential elections to act as a barometer. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Putin and Trump won’t discuss some hypothetical plans should an opportune moment for changing policy emerge for Trump.