Kremlin counts days to Trump's inauguration, blasts Obama

Exulted by Donald Trump's victory in the US, the Kremlin is counting the days to his inauguration and venting its anger at Barack Obama's outgoing administration, no holds barred.
Careful not to hurt chances for a thaw in US-Russia relations, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have deferred questions about their plans for future contacts with Trump and any agenda for those talks until he takes office on Friday.
Trump's open admiration of Putin has brought wide expectations of improved Moscow-Washington relations, but Trump has not articulated a clear Russia policy. His Cabinet nominees include both a retired general with a hawkish stance on Russia and an oil executive who has done extensive business in Russia.

At the same time, Russian officials are blasting the outgoing US administration in distinctly undiplomatic language, dropping all decorum after Obama hit Moscow with more sanctions in his final weeks in office.
Moscow calls Obama's team a "bunch of geopolitical losers" engaged in a last-ditch effort to inflict the maximum possible damage to US-Russia ties to make it more difficult for Trump to mend the rift.
In a clear effort to avoid risking a rapprochement with Trump, Putin showed a remarkable restraint when the US expelled 35 Russian diplomats over accusations of meddling in the US election campaign. Instead of a usual tit-for-tat response, Putin invited US diplomats' children to a New Year's party at the Kremlin.

Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and Russia's ambassador to the US were in frequent contact in recent weeks, including on December 29, the day Obama hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for election-related hacking, according to a senior US official. That call and others suggest that the incoming administration is already laying the groundwork for a possible thaw with Moscow.

Moscow similarly refrained from retaliation when the White House last week added five Russians, including the chief of Russia's top state investigative agency, to the US sanctions list.
While Putin and his lieutenants hope Trump will open up to Russia, they know any attempt to fix ties will face massive obstacles, including possible strong resistance in the US Congress.

"Any future contacts will have to be prepared quite accurately and thoroughly, as they would follow a tense period," Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Fyodor Lukyanov, chair of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, a group of Russian foreign policy experts, said Syria is one area where a US-Russian rapport is likely.