Election considerations, personal similarities, the war against Iran. Numerous factors explain the rapprochement that Donald Trump has undertaken with Vladimir Putin, whom a close aide to the American president said on Wednesday that he is "humane", writes an AFP analysis.
In addition, the Republican leader boasted yesterday of the "respect" that his Russian counterpart has for him and which, according to him, was evident in the release "without asking for anything in return for Stephen Hubbard" – A 74-year-old American who was detained in Russia for four years.
However, Donald Trump himself admitted that Moscow had gotten something, because he wrote that Hubbard would not have been released if Washington had not recently taken the decision to exempt Russia from the strict sanctions provided for in a new US law.
Since the US president returned to power, "there has been a kind of attraction" from the Russian president, which was intensified by the pre-election context, Liana Fix told AFP – researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Vladimir Putin "is exploiting Trump's nervousness before the midterm elections and doing it very well", she says.
Midterm elections
The midterm elections on November 3 could cost Donald Trump, who is tirelessly campaigning for them, control of one or both houses of Congress due to voters' dissatisfaction with the cost of living, especially fuel.
The 80-year-old billionaire's new rapprochement with the Russian president in connection with Russian fuels, the sale of which the American president gave permission, hoping to reduce prices at gas stations in the United States at least a little.
This rapprochement has had a negative impact on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Donald Trump called on Ukraine on October 10 to send a "new leader", and on October 15 said that it was "more difficult" to talk to his Ukrainian counterpart than to Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump claims that it was Ukraine, with its strikes on Russian refineries, that raised the price of diesel, although the increase in price is mainly due to the war that Trump himself started against Iran - a country that is an ally of Russia.
The American president, who does not want this rather unpopular conflict to flare up again before the elections on November 3, recently expressed satisfaction that Moscow is doing "very little or almost nothing to help" of Tehran.
"I want it to continue like this", Trump also said.
Beyond calculations, personal impulses also play a role, and not only those of Donald Trump.
"What nonsense, Steve?"
His special envoy Steve Witkoff shocked everyone yesterday by telling the Russian president during his meeting with him in St. Petersburg: "You are a humanist too, sir".
"What nonsense, Steve?", Republican Senator Tom Tillis reacted on the social network Ex. "What a shameful and scandalous statement. You should go to Ukraine and ask the families of the children Putin kidnapped and killed if they agree with this".
The outrage of this conservative congressman, who will not be running for re-election on November 3, is unlikely to prevent a rapprochement between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Especially given the fact that the American president, who seeks international prestige and admires authoritarian leaders, sees an incredible prospect: a trilateral meeting with the Russian president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November in China, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.
He will certainly try not to offend either of them before this meeting. He has already hung a photo of himself with Vladimir Putin in a prominent place in the White House, and another – with Xi Jinping.
Liana Fix says that today there are no longer many influential voices in Washington and elsewhere who could stop this turn towards Russia.
She also notes the recent death of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, to whom the president listened and who initiated the law providing for new sanctions against Moscow - the same law that Donald Trump himself rendered meaningless after lifting the sanctions.
Furthermore, "European leaders no longer show the same activity" as at the beginning of the mandate, when one after another they came to the Oval Office to defend the Ukrainian cause, the researcher notes.