I wonder if those two are in agreement in trolling the rest?
This might get to be real fun to watch.
I think things between Putin and Trump might be a bit tense following Trump’s Poland speech, where he was pretty tough on Russia (and rightly so).
Trump clearly “took sides” with Poland against Russia, not only with his comments about Russia’s brutal occupation in the last century, but also with regard to Russia’s support of terrorist states. Even more significant were Trump’s pointed comments regarding freeing Poland from its energy dependency on Russia.
Poland importing it’s natural gas from the US not only hurts Russia financially through loss of a client state, and by undercutting prices Russia can charge for fuel elsewhere, but it weakens Russia’s global position as a power broker, since Russia uses energy dependency strategically to exert leverage over client states.
Russia is heavily dependant on revenues from fuel exports, and is already being hit hard by falling oil prices. Competition with the US as a supplier of energy, right in their back yard can not be a welcome thing.
It will be interesting to see how Putin reacts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some coldness toward Trump.