by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

John Bolton’s two-day trip, meeting Putin, Sergey Lavrov, and other top Russian officials, did nothing to soften US hostility toward the country.

Bilateral relations continue deteriorating, not improving. Nothing in prospect suggests positive change under Republicans or undemocratic Dems.

Both parties consider Russia Washington’s main adversary. Partnership between them is nonexistent, despite Putin, Lavrov, and other Kremlin officials pretending otherwise.

On Tuesday, Putin and Bolton met for 90 minutes, agreeing that dialogue between both sides is needed, despite irreconcilable differences on major issues.

Putin urged arranging another meeting with Trump, saying “it would be useful to offer direct dialogue with the president of the United States, first of all, on the sidelines of upcoming international events, say, in Paris.”

He referred to the upcoming 100th commemoration of WW I’s end on November 11. Commenting on the aftermath of his July 16 Helsinki summit talks with Trump, he said:

“(W)e are sometimes surprised to see the United States take absolutely unprovoked steps towards Russia that we cannot regard as friendly. We even refrain from retaliation practically to any move of yours. Yet all this goes on and on.”

It includes multiple rounds of illegal US sanctions, numerous false accusations against Russia, proof absent every time because none exists, both countries on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, and the latest shoe to drop with Trump’s announced landmark INF Treaty pullout – falsely claiming Russian breaches, ignoring clear US ones.

Following Bolton’s meeting with Putin, he said “(w)e discussed our continuing concern with (nonexistent) Russian meddling in elections, and why it was particularly harmful to Russian-American relations, without producing anything for them in return,” adding:

“(W)e we had lengthy conversations about arms control issues, the new strategic landscape and the president’s decision on the INF treaty” – failing to explain Trump’s pretext for pulling out unilaterally is a bald-faced lie.

His “discussion (with) Putin covered the whole range of issues differing in certain respects, depending on who we were speaking with from the Russian side.”

“As President Putin said in the opening of the meeting today…it would be useful to continue direct dialogue with (Trump), primarily on the fields of international events that will take place in the near future.”