Trump i Putin
© SPUTNIK/AFP/File Mikhail KLIMENTYEV
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Tuesday that the US wants rapprochement with Russia.

"Overall, I can say that the United States government would certainly prefer to have a stronger relationship with the Russian government," Nauert told reporters.

What's more, on Friday, Trump said it is possible that he might meet with Russian President Putin this summer. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has confirmed this possibility.

On Monday, Russian congressman Konstantin Kosachev revealed to reporters that US Senators have requested a meeting with the Council of the Federation, Russia's equivalent of the US Senate, and that such could be held in early July.

Since 2014, relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated over the crisis in Ukraine. Washington imposed anti-Russian sanctions in response to Crimea's reunification with Russia and alleged Russian involvement in the war in Donbass.

Russia has denied all these charges and has launched its own economic sanctions in retaliation.

Just recently, a new wave of sanctions followed Western allegations that Russia has been engaged in malicious cyber activity, which Moscow has called unfounded.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has remarked that the West could not possibly find a weaker argument, and that such unfounded allegations have been completely refuted.

Indeed, it is clear that Washington's main gripe with Moscow is that Russia has successfully fended off aggressive NATO power projections against the Eurasian giant, particularly in South Ossetia, Ukraine and Syria. This is part of the larger context of Russia and China emerging as superpowers and championing a multipolar world which threatens to put an end to Washington's unipolar dominance since the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The US consistently refused to accept the reality of growing multipolarity until Donald Trump rose to power in Washington. As Fort Russ News has argued, Donald Trump represents an attempt at reforming the US' geopolitics in the wake of its unipolar empire's decline.

One aspect of Trump's ambitious reform project has been rapprochement with Moscow in order to re-adjust the focus of US imperialism towards Iran, China, and Latin America. It is in this context that Washington's latest diplomatic pronouncements on Russia should be seen. The same goes for Trump's major claim on June 8th that the G7 should accept Crimea as Russian.

Trump's overtures towards Russia have been persistently opposed and even sabotaged by the deep state of Washington's establishment and Trump's political opponents who have fanned a massive media campaign to allege that Trump is in office thanks to Russian interference in the American elections.

Whether Trump's diplomats' expressed desires to improve relations with Moscow will be translated into reality remains an open question. A Trump-Putin meeting this summer would be a serious step in this direction. We might just be seeing the rhetorical warm-up for such now.