There is a reason Vladimir Putin and the Russian top political echelon has been avoiding the media following the onslaught of allegations lobbed at the Kremlin, and Trump: as AP writes, careful not to hurt chances for a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations, President 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." In short, the "Kremlin is counting the days to his inauguration and venting its anger at Barack Obama's outgoing administration, no holds barred."

Trump's desire to restore relations with Russia 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 U.S. administration in distinctly undiplomatic language, dropping all decorum after Obama hit Moscow with more sanctions in his final weeks in office.

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Most recently, Moscow has called Obama's team a "bunch of geopolitical losers" engaged in a last-ditch effort to inflict the maximum possible damage to U.S.-Russia ties to make it more difficult for Trump to mend the rift.

Doing its part to improve relations once Trump is sworn in on Friday at noon, in a clear effort to avoid risking a rapprochement with Trump, Putin showed a remarkable restraint when the U.S. expelled 35 Russian diplomats over accusations of meddling in the U.S. election campaign. Instead of a usual tit-for-tat response, Putin invited U.S. diplomats' children to a New Year's party at the Kremlin.

Sparking the latest diplomatic mini scandal in the US, late last week it emerged that Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and Russia's ambassador to the U.S. were in frequent contact in recent weeks, including on Dec. 29, the day Obama hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for election-related hacking, according to a senior U.S. 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 U.S. sanctions list.

Still, while Putin and his aides hope Trump will open up to Russia, they know any attempt to fix ties will face massive obstacles, including possible strong resistance in the U.S. 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 U.S.-Russian rapport is likely. During the call with Flynn, the Russian ambassador invited U.S. officials to a conference on Syria to be held in Kazakhstan later this month, according to a transition official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. In an interview Friday with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he might do away with Obama's sanctions if Russia works with the U.S. on battling terrorists and achieving other goals.