The current CEO of energy giant ExxonMobil was awarded the prestigious Order of Friendship by President Putin in 2013, but instead of seeing this as a positive signal that Tillerson is the right man for reaching a New Détente in the New Cold War with Russia, his critics say that this makes him President Putin’s pawn and proves that President-elect Trump is really a secret Kremlin agent. This conspiracy theory also pairs well with the other one being peddled by the CIA that Russia allegedly hacked into the election in order to turn the tables towards Trump, a claim which has generated bipartisan support for a deeper investigation. The future of American diplomacy is thus contingent on whether or not the country’s elected representatives are swayed by this conspiracy.
Sergey Strokan and Andrew Korybko are joined by Max Suchkov, Editor of Al-Monitor’s Russia-Mideast coverage as well as an expert of the Russian International Affairs Council (studio guest), Dr. Roslyn Fuller, Research Associate, Waterford Institute of Technology, and Fedor Voitolovsky, Deputy Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Science.
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