On Wednesday, the Russian Security Council said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and counterpart Nikolai Patrushev held a constructive call that was part of the preparations for high-level negotiations.
The phone call comes just weeks after an analyst tied to the Steele dossier, Igor Danchenko, was arrested for lying to the FBI during special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe. In addition, the indictment revealed that many of the allegations involving Russia were completely fabricated.
Moreover, earlier in November, Fox News reported, citing unnamed sources, that Sullivan is the person referred to as "foreign policy adviser" in an indictment of a former Clinton campaign lawyer who was also charged in the Durham probe.
"The timing of more of the Russiagate lies collapsing could be fortuitous," World Beyond War Executive Director and Nobel Peace Prize nominee David Swanson told Sputnik. "The US government will never apologize for anything, but it's a bit more wary of pushing things like Havana Syndrome too hard in the absence of evidence."
Biden is perhaps trying to emulate former President John F. Kennedy "in dancing up to but ultimately walking back from Armageddon," Swanson speculated.
"Unfortunately, you can't just keep raising military spending and demanding the same from NATO sidekicks and fueling NATO bureaucracy and keeping an off switch functioning forever," Swanson said.
Former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong, however, warned that the sheer chaos in the Biden administration makes any real progress impossible.
"None of these questions can be answered until we have an idea who's in charge in Washington," Armstrong, former Counselor at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow, said. "For example: Are Russian troops massing at the Ukraine border - the State Department says they are, the Pentagon says they aren't."
As for Sullivan himself, Armstrong said Biden’s top security adviser is "too deeply involved in the Russiagate nonsense to be credible."
Former senior Pentagon adviser Douglas Macgregor told Sputnik that because of its ongoing war against its political opponents inside the US, the Biden Administration can ill afford "simultaneous armed confrontations with Moscow and Beijing."
"The Biden Administration and its supporters on [Capitol] Hill are committed ideologues. Their essential attitudes at home and abroad will not change," he concluded. "Thus, any expectations of meaningful change should be suppressed."