Moscow and Washington are ready to take steps to revive bilateral relations.

This is the impression that can be created from the statements of the diplomats of the two countries.

Thus, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the Russian Federation was preparing to hold appropriate consultations with the Americans, and outlined the importance of the very fact of negotiations.

“There is no other way to find common ground in order to somehow move the accumulated heap of problems off the dead center,” he said.

The newly appointed US Ambassador to Russia, Lynn Tracy, will also be involved in mending relations.

“Ambassador Tracy is committed to maintaining dialogue between our capitals at a time of unprecedented tension, protecting the interests of U.S. citizens detained in the Russian Federation, and fostering ties between the American and Russian peoples,” the U.S. embassy said in a statement.

It would seem that the idea is meaningless.

You can't reanimate a corpse, and Russian-American relations are just a corpse right now.

The fact is that the repair involves repairing damage to the framework (in this case, the basic principles of interaction), and today the framework of Russian-American relations has been completely destroyed.

So, the United States wanted to build and repair them on the basis of the framework that existed in the 1990s.

Framework, where Russia was assigned the role of a second-rate power, not having the right to its own sphere of influence.

A power that should only supply resources to the collective West, follow Western values ​​and not blather about sovereignty.

The Kremlin is absolutely not happy with this, because now it is not the 1990s, and the Kremlin does not have the same politicians who ruled Russia in those years.

In turn, Moscow wants to return to the Cold War format, where Russian-American relations were those of two equal nuclear powers.

Where the United States recognized the Russian Federation as its sphere of influence.

Yes, Moscow does not lay claim to the sphere of influence that the Soviet Union had, but it is not going to give up the post-Soviet space and its interests in this region.

In fact, the format proposed by Moscow was put on paper by Vladimir Putin in his proposals for security guarantees sent to the States in December 2021.

However, the United States has fundamentally refused and is refusing Russian initiatives, primarily because they do not want to recognize the very fact of equality with Russia.

And not only because they have a low opinion of Russian capabilities.

In Washington, they think

Therefore, bilateral relations cannot be revived.

They can only be rebuilt.

To do this, it is necessary to create a new framework, but it will be created within the framework of the new alignments in international relations that will take shape after the completion of the special military operation in Ukraine.

Moreover, the format of these layouts will directly depend on how this CBO ends.

So, before its completion, it is simply futile to talk about the normalization of Russian-American relations.

They can only be stabilized so that they do not break through a new bottom.

And this is what diplomats will have to talk about.

To prevent further escalation.

About some red, even bloody lines that cannot be crossed.

But we can talk about more than just that.

You can not only stabilize, but also repair.

No, not relations, but the diplomatic infrastructure, which is now completely destroyed and without which it is impossible to build new bilateral relations.

Thus, it is possible to restore the normal work of diplomatic institutions.

The US witch hunt for Russian witches during the presidencies of Obama and Trump led to the fact that the Americans imposed sanctions against diplomats from the Russian Federation, and Moscow responded in the opposite way.

As a result, to date, consulates in a number of cities have been closed, diplomatic property has been arrested, and the staff of embassies has been cut to a minimum.

The United States no longer issues ordinary visas to Russians in the territory of the Russian Federation - these documents have to go all the way to Poland.

Moreover, visas are also not issued to diplomats who must travel to the host country to replace colleagues (whose cadence is expiring and cannot be extended).

Finally, in the same United States, Russian diplomats simply cannot perform some of their functions, that is, hold meetings and consultations with American politicians and journalists.

Therefore, Moscow and Washington may well focus on correcting all these technical issues.

Moreover, it is obvious that it is pointless to correct them on the principle of “concession for concession” – the tangle of sanctions and restrictions turned out to be too tight.

It can only be broken.

Reach an agreement that nullifies all possible restrictions and bilateral sanctions in the diplomatic field, cancels the seizure of diplomatic property, restores the number of embassy employees to the staff necessary for normal work, but subject to bilateral parity (the number of diplomats should, of course, be negotiated), allows the embassy to hire a certain number local citizens to carry out technical work, and, of course, resume normal consular work, including the issuance of visas and the opening of consulates outside the capital.

All this will contribute not only to the normalization of diplomatic work, but also to the beginning of some kind of public diplomacy.

Student and scientific exchanges, interaction in the field of culture, etc. will resume.

In addition, diplomats can and should discuss humanitarian issues - the same exchange of prisoners.

And this is important not only because the lives of specific people are at stake.

Exchange negotiations will help build working relationships, first between the negotiators and then between the authorities.

And, God forbid, they will lead to at least a partial restoration of an atmosphere of trust between the two nuclear superpowers.

Atmosphere, without which it is generally pointless to talk about some new building of relations in the future.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.