Vladimir Putin, during his two-decade tenure as either Russia’s president or prime minister, has now experienced several iterations of a peculiar cycle in U.S.-Russian relations: a pattern of deterioration edging toward greater hostility suddenly interrupted by a major crisis that offers the opportunity to reset ties between Washington and Moscow. No such opening occurred during the last year of the Clinton administration, but subsequent instances—during the tenures of George W. Bush and Barack Obama—ultimately failed to produce the type of Russian-American relationship Putin seeks. Yet Putin hopes that by offering himself as a partner to the Trump administration during a new crisis—the coronavirus pandemic—he can achieve this long-elusive breakthrough with his fourth American president.
