Sunday evening, January 17, barely known the news of the arrest of Alexei Navalny on his return from Germany, Jake Sullivan is one of the first to react: “Mr. Navalny must be released immediately, and the perpetrators of this outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable”, Joe Biden’s future national security adviser wrote on Twitter.
The new US administration will not take office until January 20, but the change in tone is already noticeable, far from the procrastination characteristic of the Trump era. Unusually, Washington had not followed the sanctions taken by the European Union against Moscow for the use, with a Novichok-type poison, of a chemical weapon against the main opponent of Vladimir Putin.
The situation of Mr. Navalny seeming doomed to deteriorate, with a prolonged imprisonment Monday of thirty days, the file will be the first on the table between the two capitals. A first bone of contention, if not a first test.
Negative dynamics
At his annual press conference, the Russian Foreign Minister compared Mr Sullivan’s statements to the charges – ” without evidence “ – Russian interference in American political life: “Diplomatic rudeness. “ Sergey Lavrov also recalled the state of mind in which Russia awaits the establishment of the Biden team: “Without illusions. “Manners may be a little more polite, but American policy may not change,” he stressed.
This openly displayed and repeated skepticism is new, recently noted the Carnegie think tank, recalling that the arrival of a new administration usually causes, on both sides, a phase of optimism.
This attitude owes a lot to the disappointment caused by Donald Trump’s tenure. If Moscow was able to take advantage during this period of the weakening of American foreign policy and that of multilateralism, the Trump era did not mark any improvement in bilateral relations. The Kremlin never fails to recall forty-six US legislative acts taken in four years to establish new sanctions or expand existing measures.
From this observation stems the idea that the bilateral relationship has acquired its own, negative dynamic, mainly under the impetus of the administration and the Congress, where there is a bipartisan consensus in favor of a policy of firmness vis-à-vis from Russia.
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