Stephen Kotkin
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Áung open the doors. (The report reveals that the Russian ambassa-
dor to the United States at the time, Sergey Kislyak, rejected Kush-
ner’s suggestion that they communicate using secure facilities at the
Russian embassy in Washington.) I was wrong, in an important way.
Petr Aven, a principal in Russia’s largest private bank and a former
Russian government ocial, told the special counsel’s investigators
about the Ãrst time after Trump’s election that Putin convened his regu-
lar quarterly meeting o Russia’s top 50 or so oligarchs. “Putin spoke o
the diculty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch with
the incoming Trump Administration,” Aven testiÃed, according to the
report. “According to Aven, Putin indicated that he did not know with
whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around
the President-Elect.” O course, this could have been misdirection, dis-
information that Putin wanted spread widely. But that is not how Muel-
ler treats it. “As soon as news broke that Trump had been elected
President, Russian government ocials and prominent Russian busi-
nessmen began trying to make inroads into the new Administration,”
the report states. “They appeared not to have preexisting contacts and
struggled to connect with senior ocials around the President-Elect.”
This is the report’s great revelation: Putin, supposedly, could help
Trump get elected but could not talk to him, despite the publicly
expressed eagerness oÊ Trump and his people to enter into contact
and make deals.
In fairness to the Russians, they did manage to convey “peace
plans” for Ukraine to Trump’s family members, only for the propos-
als to languish in inboxes while the Russians repeatedly begged to
know—on behal o “the boss” (Putin)—i there had been any move-
ment on the issue. Genuinely important players in the campaign,
such as Donald Trump, Jr., and Kushner, turned out to have an un-
derwhelming grasp o foreign policy and no sense oÊ how to make
anything happen in government.
Putin and his operatives appear to have been no more prepared for
Trump’s victory than Trump and his people were. To be sure, it re-
mains possible that Russian intelligence did surveil the internal com-
munications o the Trump operation. But i so, the information they
gleaned delivered little operational value, at least in terms o enabling
useful dialogue to advance Russian interests. Trump world may be too
disorganized to manipulate. But Russian intelligence may be less skill-
ful than it is typically made out to be, particularly when attempting to