Swedish economist Anders Aslund, who pays close attention to Ukrainian and American politics as a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., says U.S. President Donald Trump’s incoming administration will bring divergent views on Russia.
Aslund puts Trump and his national security adviser Michael Flynn in the pro-Putin camp.
But he thinks they’ll face countervailing views from Secretary of Defense James Mattis and likely Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
It’s not clear what the Trump administration will mean for Ukraine, which is defending itself against a three-year war instigated by Russia that has claimed 10,000 lives and the loss of Crimea and portions of the eastern Donbas region.
Aslund admits Ukraine’s situation is not good.
“After Mexico, I think Ukraine is the country that is in the worst situation from Trump,” Aslund said at a meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine on Jan. 24.
Concerns over Flynn escalated after The Wall Street Journal reported that the retired U.S. army lieutenant general was under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents following his correspondence with Russian officials.
It was reported that the investigation focused on a series of phone calls Flynn made to Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, on Dec. 29, when the U.S. government announced new sanctions against Russia in response to the Kremlin’s efforts to influence the presidential election.
Mattis, meanwhile, is expected to take a tougher stance on Russia, recently flagging the country as a “principal threat” to the U.S. The retired United States Marine Corps general, at his confirmation hearing on Jan. 12., said while he supported engagement with Russia, there was “a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and an increasing number of areas where we’re going to have to confront Russia.”
Aslund believes Tillerson, who also started voicing concerns over Russia recently, is expected to adopt as secretary of state a similar line to Mattis. He said that, while the former ExxonMobil CEO faced questions over this warm relationship with Russia, it is understood that he was putting the commercial interests of his company first.
“He negotiated very hard as well with Russia,” Aslund said. “He was the main lobbyist in Washington against the sanctions against Russia, but ExxonMobil was the main (focus) of the sanctions against Russia so again there seems to be more company interest than something that is wrong.”
Aslund said President Petro Poroshenko should insist on a White House meeting with Trump. He noted that it was positive that Trump has yet to call Putin following his inauguration as president, but the two leaders are expected to meet in coming months.
Aslund said the worst move Trump could make at the meeting with Putin would be to agree to lift sanctions against Russia.
“Then the Congress is likely to adopt legislation on these sanctions (that) they never retreat on. That would be a trap for the Russians and I think that the Russians understand this much better than Trump does,” he said.
