Retired general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Michael Flynn will go down in history for serving the shortest tenure of any U.S. national security adviser to date. Flynn resigned Monday night after just 23 days in office, following revelations that he misled White House and FBI officials about the details of phone calls he had with Russia's ambassador to the United States in December. The resignation marks the second time U.S. President Donald Trump has had to sacrifice a key personality from his team over allegations of untoward links to Russia. In August 2016, as signs of Russia's cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee began to emerge, Paul Manafort stepped down as Trump's campaign manager. (A federal investigation found that Manafort had ties to former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich and had allegedly accepted millions of dollars in cash payments for lobbying on behalf of Russian-backed officials and oligarchs in Ukraine.) But all appearances aside, the Trump administration is not shaping up to be the silver bullet for U.S.-Russia relations that Moscow was likely hoping for.

Like the Manafort scandal, the events that precipitated Flynn's downfall began before Trump took office. On Dec. 29, Flynn — then the president-elect's nominee for national security adviser — spoke with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak over the phone. Over the course of their conversations, Flynn allegedly assured Moscow that the sanctions President Barack Obama had imposed on Russia earlier that day in response to Moscow's cyber operations during the U.S. election would soon be eased. Flynn then gave varying responses to officials in the Trump administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, over just what his conversations with Kislyak entailed. And since the phone call was tapped as a matter of intelligence protocol (raising questions over why such an amateur move was made in the first place), Flynn had no room to blame the affair on a misunderstanding.

Flynn's resignation has added momentum to the investigations into Russia's ties to the Trump team. U.S. lawmakers, including top Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn and Roy Blunt (the latter two of whom are on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence), are calling for further congressional investigations into the Trump administration's contacts with Russia. A sensational intelligence dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent is still under investigation, meanwhile, and some of its contents have been cross-verified, according to unnamed U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. The administration has also publicly distanced itself from Carter Page, who advised Trump on foreign policy during his campaign for the presidency. Page, in addition to reportedly having extensive contact with Russia's state-owned energy firms, gave a lecture in Moscow during the campaign season in which he advocated a reset in U.S.-Russia relations.

The irony, though, is that the Trump administration's alleged ties to Russia will make it more difficult for the president to pursue the reconciliation with Moscow that he has promised. In his press briefing on Tuesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer insisted that Trump has been "tough" on Russia, expecting Moscow to de-escalate the violence in eastern Ukraine and return Crimea. Spicer's statements will bind the president's hands even more tightly over the matter of easing U.S. sanctions on Russia. Returning Crimea is already out of the question for Russia, but Moscow could try to persuade Trump to recognize the new reality by lifting the sanctions related to the annexed territory through his executive authority. Spicer's comments on Crimea, however, along with those of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, will make any policy acrobatics over sanctions that much trickier. Trump could also adopt a more flexible interpretation of the Minsk agreement on Ukraine to ease sanctions, but that would entail putting more responsibility for settling the conflict on the Ukrainian parties than on Russia. Now that Flynn is out of the picture, moreover, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis will likely gain a stronger voice in the White House to shape a more moderate policy on Russia with a focus on reinforcing NATO alliances in Europe.

If Moscow feels that it isn't getting anywhere in negotiations with the Trump administration, then it will eventually fall back on its role as a spoiler in its dealings with the United States. Rumors have been circulating in the Russian press that the frontrunner to replace Kislyak as Russia's ambassador to the United States is Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov. Antonov is a career diplomat with over 30 years' experience. In 2015, the European Union sanctioned him for allegedly providing military support to Ukrainian separatists. Known for his hawkish attitude toward the West, Antonov was allegedly slated to take over the ambassadorship in the event that Hillary Clinton won the presidential election and Russia needed to take a harder line with Washington. If he is chosen as Kislyak's replacement, it could be another subtle sign that Russia is expecting its adversarial relations with the United States to continue.

Despite all the personalities, leaks and investigations in play, a deep-seated distrust remains between Washington and Moscow. What Moscow found unique and vaguely promising about the Trump administration was that it had demonstrated a willingness to re-evaluate the United States' relations with Russia and recognize that the two need not be locked in an ever-escalating standoff. The United States today is not engaged in a globe-spanning ideological battle with Russia as it was during the Cold War. Instead, it is merely trying to keep a check on Russia's activities in the former Soviet sphere as Europe barely holds itself together and as it works to juggle several other priorities. Re-examining the U.S.-Russia relationship would in theory enable the two countries to ease some of the tension between them, especially since Russia is already well-positioned to facilitate (or sabotage) U.S. operations in the Middle East.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin probably knew that a dramatic reorientation of U.S. foreign policy was a long shot. With or without Trump, Russia was never going to compromise on its defenses in its near abroad. Still, even the inkling of a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, however ephemeral it may be, enabled Russia to increase its influence among borderland states that had begun to question their security guarantees from the West. And if Russia's influence operations in Washington unravel, if the U.S. sanctions regime shows no sign of give, and if NATO continues its military buildup in Russia's backyard, Putin has the playbook ready.