Russia’s weak institutional presence in Washington
Unlike many countries that conduct lobbying in the US through entrenched institutional mechanisms, Russia has historically avoided building robust lobbying structures in Washington. Our research at the Russia Program indicates that Moscow has preferred symbolic equality with Washington over pragmatic engagement: whereas Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Ukraine rely on professional lobbyists to pursue concrete policy goals, Russia expects to be treated by the US as a peer power, one whose voice carries weight by virtue of history and status rather than by institutionalized presence.

The evidence is clear in the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings. The 2017 inclusion of RT and its affiliates in the US foreign agent registry generated public debate, but statistically the number of Russian entities formally registered as foreign principals has always been very low. Of the few Russian cases, only a handful have represented direct state interests, while most were peripheral. Compared with other states’, Russia’s lobbying footprint in the US remains small, fragmented and largely symbolic.

Today, few US lobbyists represent Russian clients, who include Roman Abramovich, Eduard Khudainatov, Sergei Chemezov and Vasily Brovko. Almost all these contracts are to get individual sanctions lifted rather than to advance Russia’s strategic state interests. In contrast, Gulf monarchies and East Asian allies invest heavily in systematic lobbying efforts around defense contracts, energy access  and congressional influence.
Russia’s traditional lack of institutionalization has left its relations with the US dependent on personal diplomacy – on the ability of its presidents to forge working relationships with their US counterparts.

Lessons from Bush and Putin

The limits of this approach are evident in the oral history project we conducted with the Southern Methodist University Center for Presidential History. Over 30 interviews with US and Russian officials from the George W Bush and early Vladimir Putin years reveal a striking pattern: both sides acknowledge genuine personal warmth between the two leaders, yet disagree on its long-term significance once structural interests began to diverge.

From the US side, Condoleezza Rice recalls that the relationship functioned at first because it was rooted in shared priorities after 9/11: counterterrorism, intelligence cooperation and Afghanistan. Bush’s personal style – his instinct to connect at a human level, even his religious affinity with Putin’s story about Orthodoxy – helped establish trust. Yet once Bush launched the Freedom Agenda, with democracy promotion at its core, Putin came to see Washington’s intentions as a direct threat. For Rice, what broke the partnership was not the loss of a personal rapport but rather Putin’s conclusion that the US aimed to spread democracy “up to Moscow’s borders,” which dovetailed with his authoritarian consolidation at home.

Robert Gates, Bush’s secretary of defense, was blunter: “personal chemistry is never as important as presidents think.” For him, structural clashes – like NATO enlargement, missile defense, and US support for Georgia and Ukraine – made a deterioration inevitable. Putin’s 2007 Munich speech and the 2008 Georgia war confirmed that nationalism outweighed any goodwill built in private.

Russian project participants echoed these assessments but from their own vantage point. Sergei Karaganov, Putin’s advisor and head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, talked about “induced chemistry” – the Kremlin’s deliberate encouragement of Bush’s belief in personal ties. Alexander Voloshin, once Putin’s chief of staff, confirmed that Putin valued Bush’s straightforwardness but stressed that personal warmth could only “buy time.” Once the “Big Bang” of NATO enlargement and the Rose Revolution in Georgia reshaped Russia’s near abroad, no level of personal trust could override the perception of strategic encirclement. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, emphasized that initial cooperation gave way to disappointment as US unilateralism grew.

The question, then, is not whether Trump and Putin could find common ground – they did, at least rhetorically – but whether such personalized diplomacy can ever translate into long-term stability. If Bush and Putin’s trajectory is any guide, interpersonal warmth quickly cools off once deeper conflicts – over NATO, Ukraine or an in-favor regime promotion – resurface.

Conclusion

The trajectory of US-Russia relations over the past two decades shows that personal diplomacy has limits. Face-to-face encounters can build trust and delay crises, but they cannot replace institutions or override strategic conflicts. As the Bush-Putin case shows, genuine warmth can rapidly unravel when problems like NATO expansion, democracy promotion and Russia’s post-Soviet sphere of influence come back onto the agenda.

Russia’s war in Ukraine can be traced directly to this unresolved struggle, rooted in the clash over spheres of influence that began even as Bush and Putin exchanged friendly words. Trump’s personal diplomacy comes even though structural realities have in the recent past outweighed personal diplomacy in the US-Russia relationship.

Trump’s bet on personal chemistry with Putin repeats the Bush pattern in an even more fragile context. Russia still lacks institutional lobbying power in Washington, relying instead on symbolic equality with the US and episodic leader-to-leader contact. This leaves relations hostage to personalities and destined to rupture when core interests diverge.

A “Trumputin pact” thus rests on an illusion, unless it rewires the entire global security system. Personal trust may buy time or generate headlines, but without institutional depth it cannot deliver lasting change. As Bush and Putin discovered and as Trump and Putin are now likely to find out, interpersonal warmth cannot withstand the gravitational pull of strategic rivalry, which is now embedded in the global security system. In other words, a “deal” on Ukraine changes nothing.