MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday proposed a truce with the USA in our on-line world, with out acknowledging that Russia has used the web to intervene in American politics.
Mr. Putin issued an uncommon written statement outlining a four-point plan for what he referred to as a “reboot” within the relationship between the USA and Russia within the area of knowledge safety. Moscow and Washington, he wrote, ought to concern “ensures of non-intervention into the interior affairs of one another, together with into electoral processes.”
The US and Russia ought to develop a bilateral settlement “on stopping incidents within the info house,” modeled on Chilly Battle-era deal making, Mr. Putin wrote.
However past the conciliatory language, Mr. Putin’s assertion provided no trace that Moscow was ready to make any concessions on cybersecurity issues. Russia continues to disclaim interfering in American politics, whereas insisting that the USA meddles in Russian politics by backing opponents of Mr. Putin.
“As we now have stated greater than as soon as, there is no such thing as a foundation” for claims that Russia has meddled in American elections, Russia’s international minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said in his own statement on Friday. “We’re in favor of an expert and constructive dialogue of all current issues and claims on the negotiating desk.”
Russia has floated related proposals earlier than, together with when Mr. Putin met with President Trump in Helsinki, Finland, in 2018. They drew curiosity from Mr. Trump however had been in any other case roundly rejected in Washington, the place lawmakers requested why the USA would work on cybersecurity with a rustic that had used hacking and online disinformation to meddle within the 2016 election.
This time, Mr. Putin is asking for a reset lower than six weeks earlier than an American presidential election that would put an outspoken critic of the Kremlin — former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — within the White Home. The transfer appeared at the least partly to be an try to current a friendlier face in response to American officers’ current statements that Russia had mounted clandestine efforts to weaken Mr. Biden within the presidential race.
“It’s doable that within the Kremlin they perceive that Biden is more likely to win,” stated Andrei Kortunov, director common of the Russian Worldwide Affairs Council, a analysis group near the Russian authorities. “They’re getting ready for a Democratic administration that may very well be even more durable towards Russia than a Republican one.”
Christopher A. Wray, the director of the F.B.I., warned final week that Russia was actively pursuing a disinformation campaign towards Mr. Biden. And a current C.I.A. evaluation concluded that it was doubtless Mr. Putin was persevering with to approve and direct interference operations aimed toward elevating Mr. Trump’s re-election probabilities.
“These measures are aimed toward build up belief between our States, selling safety and prosperity of our peoples,” Mr. Putin’s assertion stated. “They are going to considerably contribute to making sure world peace within the info house.”
Two Russian political analysts with ties to the Kremlin stated in interviews Friday that even when Mr. Putin’s proposal was a real try at enhancing the connection with Washington, they didn’t count on it to go wherever. Mr. Kortunov stated Mr. Putin had not signaled that he was prepared to provide any substantial floor within the dispute over election interference.
“It’s apparent that the Kremlin would, after all, favor to not quarrel with Washington, irrespective of the election consequence,” Mr. Kortunov stated, noting the danger of a President Biden searching for to impose new sanctions on Russia. “However they wish to keep away from these challenges with out paying a severe value.”
As an illustration, Mr. Kortunov famous, the Kremlin has not made any public effort to rein in Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Russian enterprise magnate indicted by the USA for serving to spearhead interference within the 2016 election.
Quite the opposite, Russia’s relationship with the West has solely deteriorated additional in current weeks. The unexplained nerve-agent attack on Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition chief now recovering in Berlin, stirred revulsion in European nations together with Germany and France — locations the place Mr. Putin had been capable of depend on some measure of sympathy. And Mr. Putin’s backing for Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the Belarusian autocrat who launched a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters final month, demonstrated the Kremlin’s hard-line pursuit of a post-Soviet sphere of affect on the expense of human rights.
Fyodor Lukyanov, a Moscow foreign-policy analyst who advises the Kremlin, stated Friday’s cybersecurity proposal underscored that Mr. Putin is now in a much more conciliatory temper than he was on the top of the Ukraine disaster 5 years in the past. However he stated American mistrust of Russia was so deep that he didn’t count on Mr. Putin’s proposal to be taken critically in Washington — and that relations might take one other step downward if Mr. Biden wins the presidency.
To make certain, a Biden victory might convey some strategic advantages for Russia, analysts in Moscow say. They count on Mr. Biden to be extra amenable to extending the New Begin treaty, the nuclear-arms pact set to run out in February. And a few imagine {that a} Biden presidency might scale back the stress on Iran, a key Russian ally.
However Mr. Biden may very well be anticipated to take a a lot more durable stand than Mr. Trump towards Russia in Ukraine and on issues of human rights. Looming over all the pieces could be the dispute over Russian election interference, Mr. Lukyanov stated.
“There’ll clearly be folks within the Biden administration who view Russia as being at fault for the lack of 2016 and can switch their private harm, and their private revenge, onto the connection,” Mr. Lukyanov stated. “Nothing good will come of it.”
