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Commentary | 22 March 2021

East-West Coffee Shop | It gets worse before it gets worse: The current state of U.S.-Russia affairs

China Podcasts Russia Russia-West Relations United States YGLN

Alex Gabuev speaks about current trends in U.S.-Russia relations. His take in a nutshell: It probably gets worse before it gets worse! Likewise, we are likely to see much more competition than cooperation between these two players, although there are still low-hanging fruits like in the field of arms control. But other battlegrounds like cyberspace, interference in elections, the Nawalny case and Ukraine make relations rocky.

The U.S.-Russia relationship probably gets worse before it gets worse. So the basic task for the two countries is not reaching any sort of detente or new reset but to manage the confrontation and make sure that it doesn't get out of control. Alex Gabuev

For Team Biden, which comes with highly skilled and dedicated personnel, this means for the foreseeable future that the job is more about managing multiple problems than about solving them all.

Furthermore, Alex addresses Russia-China relations and whether the U.S. election pushes Beijing and Moscow closer to each other. Alex Gabuev is a Senior Fellow with Carnegie Moscow Center and a member of the YGLN.