Over the past two weeks, contacts between Presidents Trump and Putin have accelerated dramatically. As was the case with the 9/11 attacks and ISIS, Putin is trying to make common cause with the United States to deal with a deadly enemy: in this case, the coronavirus.
But is such a reset possible, given the accumulation of grievances and mistrust on both sides? Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, has explored the historical antecedents of Putin’s recent gambit. For his part, Eugene Rumer, the director of Carnegie’s Washington-based Russia Eurasia Program, has written that it’s premature to expect that the coronavirus will force the Kremlin to play nice or trigger a fundamental re-think of the policies that have contributed to the dangerous stand-off with the United States.
Please join Carnegie experts Eugene Rumer and Dmitri Trenin for a conversation from Washington and Moscow about the possibility of a transformed U.S.-Russian relationship in the age of the coronavirus pandemic. Moderated by Andrew S. Weiss.
Eugene Rumer
Eugene Rumer is a senior fellow and the director of Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program.
Dmitri Trenin
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, has been with the center since its inception.
Andrew S. Weiss
Andrew S. Weiss is the James Family Chair and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
