Russia’s Weak Institutional Presence in Washington

Unlike many countries that lobby the U.S. through entrenched institutional mechanisms, Russia has historically avoided building robust lobbying structures in Washington. Our research at the Russia Program shows that Moscow has preferred symbolic equality over pragmatic engagement. Where Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, or Ukraine rely on professional lobbyists to pursue concrete policy goals, Russia has expected to be treated 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 U.S. foreign agent registry generated public debate, but statistically the number of Russian entities formally registered as foreign principals has always been extremely low. Of the few Russian cases, only a handful represented direct state interests, while most were peripheral. Compared with other states, Russia’s lobbying footprint in the U.S. remains shallow, fragmented, and largely symbolic.

Today, only a small number of American lobbyists represent Russian clients such as Roman Abramovich, Eduard Khudainatov, Sergei Chemezov, and Vasily Brovko. These contracts overwhelmingly focus on lifting individual sanctions rather than advancing Russia’s strategic state interests. In contrast, Gulf monarchies or East Asian allies invest heavily in systematic lobbying efforts aimed at defense contracts, energy access, and congressional influence.

Russia’s traditional lack of institutionalization in the US has left it dependent on personal diplomacy—on the ability of its presidents to forge working relationships with their American 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 U.S. and Russian officials from the George W. Bush and 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 American 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 personal rapport but Putin’s conclusion that the U.S. aimed to spread democracy “up to Moscow’s borders,” dovetailing with his authoritarian consolidation at home.

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense under Bush, was more blunt: “Personal chemistry is never as important as presidents think.” For him, structural clashes—NATO enlargement, missile defense, and U.S. support for Georgia and Ukraine—made deterioration inevitable. The 2007 Munich speech and 2008 Georgia war confirmed that nationalism outweighed any goodwill built in private.

Russian participants echoed this assessment but from their own vantage point. Sergey Karaganov, Putin’s advisor and the head of  Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, described “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 NATO’s “Big Bang” expansion 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 Foreign Policy, emphasized that initial cooperation gave way to disappointment as U.S. 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 is quickly eroded once deeper conflicts—over NATO, Ukraine, or an in-favor regime promotion—resurface.

Conclusion

The trajectory of the U.S.–Russia relations over the past two decades shows that personal diplomacy has narrow limits. Face-to-face encounters can build trust and delay crises, but they cannot replace institutions or override strategic conflicts. The Bush–Putin case demonstrated how quickly genuine warmth unraveled once disputes over NATO expansion, democracy promotion, and Russia’s post-Soviet sphere of influence resurfaced.

Russia’s war in Ukraine is a direct continuation of that unresolved struggle, rooted in the clash over spheres of influence that began even as Bush and Putin exchanged friendly words. Trump’s leap into personal diplomacy therefore enters a conflict that has already collapsed personal diplomacy under the weight of structural realities.
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 and episodic leader-to-leader contact. This leaves relations hostage to personalities and destined to rupture when core interests diverge.

A “Trumputin pact” as-a-deal thus rests on illusion unless it revises 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 likely to repeat, 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 will change nothing.