MOSCOW, November 1. /TASS/. The outcome of the presidential race in the United States is hardly expected to serious impact its relations with Russia, according to Russian political analysts who spoke at a news conference on Tuesday dedicated to the forthcoming US presidential polls.
"Relations between Russia and the United States are obviously shaped by personalities but, to a larger extent, they are shaped by objective factors," Valery Garbuzov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for the USA and Canadian Studies, said. "Donald Trump, if he wins, can hardly be expected to ‘swing the ship’ around to make us turn from opponent to partners in the geopolitical game. This can hardly happen."
Nevertheless, he did not rule out that "a more meaningful dialogue is possible in the next four years."
He noted that following the Ukrainian crisis relations between Russia and the United States have been following a tough confrontational course. The key task today, in his words, is to "work out a mechanism to settle such relations." "The language of ultimatums is counterproductive," he said. "We maintained dialogue even in the years of the Cold War, something of the kind is needed today."
The expert said he doubts that positive changes can be swift. "I don’t know whether we will see mitigation of the confrontation our states are currently in," Garbuzov added.
Another expert, Andrei Sidorov, the holder of chair in global political processes and international organizations at the Moscow State University, shared this point of view.
"It will be impossible to reverse the vector of the Russia-US relations immediately," he said, adding that pressure on Russia is likely to grow in case of Hillary Clinton’s victory "with an eye to 2018, the year of presidential elections in Russia."