Impacts of the new
Putin presidency on
U.S.-Russia relations?

U.S. ties with Russia have been strained since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin began his re-election campaign for president. This has made it more difficult for Washington and Moscow to make progress on policy toward Syria and Iran, and we are in many fields now experiencing that the relatively warm contact between President Obama and President Medvedev is in the process of being replaced by a colder tone. Putin apparently prefers the role of counterweight more than being a world stage partner together with U.S.A.

This month marks three years since the U.S.- Russia “reset” was introduced. In March 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva. They agreed that it was time to turn the page in relations between the two countries and start a constructive dialogue with a clean slate.

President Barack Obama has made better relations with Russia a cornerstone of his foreign policy . The so-called “reset” in relations with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev brought about a major arms-control agreement and increased cooperation on such issues as Afghanistan, Iran and Libya.

Analysts say there is currently a chill in relations between Washington and Moscow, not least due to Russia joining China in vetoing a U.N. resolution calling for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step aside. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote “a travesty.”

Georgetown University Russia expert Angela Stent says Vladimir Putin has been employing an old, familiar tool during his recent presidential campaign, blaming the United States for a lot of Russia’s problems..

“He has really resorted to a tactic that, of course, has been used since he became president in 2000 - and that is to invoke the United States [as the] enemy, to blame the United States for a lot of Russian problems," said Stent. "And as you saw, in the Duma elections, he then blamed Hillary Clinton, Secretary Clinton for supporting the opposition and for trying to undermine Russian stability.”

Russia expert Robert Legvold cites another example.

“When the new [U.S.] ambassador, Michael McFaul, hosted opposition figures, even though it was a quiet meeting, the authorities knew about it, had camera people there to film it," said Legvold. "And then that led the media, certainly at Putin’s behest, or media knowing what Putin would want, to sharply attack McFaul for doing this kind of thing, interfering and then accusing the opposition party of, through that channel, receiving funding from the United States.”

Mikhail Leontyev, a commentator on Russian state TV, said McFaul was close to U.S. intelligence services. Others have said McFaul has been sent to Moscow to foment an Orange Revolution in Russia.

The accusation that opposition leaders are working at the behest of the U.S. state department to generate an Orange-style revolution is an insult frequently levelled by Kremlin supporters.

"The thing is that McFaul is not a Russia specialist, but a specialist in a very specific kind of democracy promotion," Mr Leontyev said on Channel One's prime-time news programme.

Putin’s latest article, “Russia and the changing world ↑ ,” in Moskovskiye Novosti depicts the U.S. as a destabilizing and dangerous force on the world stage, which needs to be countered. Putin writes: “It seems that NATO members, especially the United States, have developed a peculiar interpretation of security that is different from ours. The Americans have become obsessed with the idea of becoming absolutely invulnerable….[this] is the root of the problem.”

In that article he rails against U.S. and NATO, alluding to the Arab Spring and support for the opposition in Syria, writing that justifications for military intervention in third-party states with the need to defend human rights is “not a noble cause,” but “elementary demagoguery.”

Given this anti-American rhetoric, questions are being raised as to what impact the new Putin presidency will have on U.S.- Russia relations.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: Introduction video