Michael Carpenter is senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. He is a former a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia and foreign policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. Follow him on Twitter: @mikercarpenter.
An activists hold up flares during an anti-corruption protest in front of the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev, on July 11, 2017. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump (R) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks during their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017.
Leaders of the world's top economies will gather from July 7 to 8, 2017 in Germany for likely the stormiest G20 summit in years, with disagreements ranging from wars to climate change and global trade. / AFP PHOTO / SPUTNIK / Mikhail KLIMENTIEV (Photo credit should read MIKHAIL KLIMENTIEV/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump smiles during a national teacher of the year event in the Oval Office of the White House April 26, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disembarks from an airplane upon his arrival at the Vnukovo II Government airport in Moscow on April 11, 2017.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow on April 11 to confront the Russian leadership over its support for President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime. Before setting off for Moscow, Tillerson told a G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Italy that Russia should rethink its alliance in the light of the latest alleged chemical attack in Syria.
/ AFP PHOTO / Alexander NEMENOV (Photo credit should read ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images)
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) meets with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin at the State Department in Washington, DC on March 7, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
