Before the meeting, analysts in both countries said any signal from Trump that Moscow and Washington could put aside past differences and forge a new relationship would be a victory for Putin. In Moscow, political leaders were celebrating Friday night.
“In some sense it’s a breakthrough,” Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, told the Interfax news agency. “Absolutely definitely psychologically and possibly practically.”
Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house, issued a statement saying that “there is no doubt that this meeting may become a step toward the solution to the situation in which the relations between our states currently are.” Startup Marketing Video The world had been waiting for the first in-person encounter between the president whose associates were facing an investigation into possible collusion with Russia, and the Kremlin leader who allegedly intervened in Trump’s favor. But the presidents Friday seemed intent on moving the relationship past that explosive issue.