With new U.S. stance, Russians envision a return to normalcy — and Ikea

Ikea furniture, Visa cards, direct flights abroad, European cars and Netflix — all barred to Russians after their country invaded Ukraine — may once more be in reach.

The sudden and unexpected thaw between official Moscow and Washington has Russians letting out a cautious sigh of relief that maybe, just maybe, a return to normalcy could suddenly be in the cards.

“We were expecting some changes,” said a senior Kremlin official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the subject more freely. “But of course, we didn’t expect such a tremendous change.”

Until recently, the ideological clash between Russia and the West seemed unbridgeable, with Moscow entrenched in its opposition to what it claimed was Washington’s hegemonic ambitions.

But the intensifying contacts between Russia and the United States and President Donald Trump’s stunning remarks that appeared to align with President Vladimir Putin’s narratives around the invasion have sparked a fledgling hope for change and an end to the war.

After Moscow described a call between the two leaders and talks in Saudi Arabia as “friendly,” Russian social media was flooded by jokes that the former rivals were now “brotherly nations” that will rule the world together — a boilerplate phrase officials normally use to refer to post-Soviet states or China.

There has been chatter that soon, Russians would be able to shop foreign brands again, take direct flights abroad and pay for them with Visa cards that work. The speculation that Western companies will return to Russia kicked into high gear after Putin’s business envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on the sidelines of the Riyadh talks that he expects some American business to return by midyear.

Another envoy, Boris Titov, spoke of “unfreezing accounts of unsanctioned companies, the return of Western brands, and the resumption of visa issuances.” For his part, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an end to the war would unlock “potentially historic economic partnerships.”

“I feel like we took a breath three years ago and have been standing still, waiting to exhale. Now we can do it, cautiously,” said a 45-year-old dentist in Moscow. “I really want to believe that people will stop killing each other. A lot of people have died, and Trump has struck the right tone, constantly repeating about the senselessness of war.”

The dentist, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about the war, fearing repercussions from the state.

“Brands, international flights, Western payment systems make you part of the world to some extent, and their presence in your country instills confidence that you still live in a more or less normal country,” the dentist said.

A Levada poll conducted six months after the invasion, after the first wave of sanctions had taken effect, showed that Russians missed the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea, foreign electronics makers and car brands the most.

Behind the consumerism runs a deeper emotion — to many, walking past Zara and H&M storefronts or taking their kids to eat meatballs at an Ikea cafeteria on the weekend served as a tangible sign that Russia is not a pariah state locked behind a new iron curtain.

“It’s not about brands, of course, but about the fact that they are elements of ‘normal’ life that everyone really wants to get back,” said a 52-year-old senior manager at a large Moscow-based company. “Everyone is terribly tired of living in isolation while your country is killing people in your neighboring country. There is a sense of hope, for the first time in all these years. I really want to believe that all this is not fake.”

Despite the invasion, daily life in most of the country away from the Ukrainian border remains largely peaceful, occasional drone strikes and suspicious fires aside.

Yet the sense of war seeps into the routine, amid billboards luring men to the front line with astronomical payments plastered across cities and a lingering sense of anxiety that things could take a turn for the worse — such as another “partial mobilization” effort, like the one in 2022, that would claim more people for the battlefield.

The Russian economy has showed resilience in weathering sanctions, and foreign brands have been replaced by Russian analogs or goods imported from China or Turkey. But economic pressures are getting more evident as the central bank struggles to tame inflation and the costs of the war mount.

State media pundits used rumors about a Western corporate return to praise Putin’s success in breaking Russia’s global isolation. But such talk also raises public hopes, forcing some officials to try to manage expectations, pointing out that no company has officially confirmed it is returning and that Trump has yet to lift any sanctions.

Economy policymakers have also cautioned that a potential thaw with the United States would not be a blanket invitation for foreign businesses to return. They have taken a tough stance, saying Moscow will pick and choose who can come back, with an eye toward supporting domestic producers.

“We are not waiting for anyone with open arms. They will have to pay for everything, for their behavior,” said Russian Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov, expressing a dim view of those who had “abandoned” the Russian market.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia must prioritize self-sufficiency and only allow foreign companies “into areas that won’t create risks for our economy, just in case someone wakes up on the wrong side of the bed again.”

The turbulent exit of foreign companies — marked by state asset seizures of firms such as ExxonMobil and Danish brewer Carlsberg — is a reminder of how risky Russia’s investment climate remains.

While ordinary Russians cheer at Trump’s apparent policy shift and the upbeat remarks from Russian officials, the glee has had a disorienting effect on the hard-line pro-invasion voices that built much of their following on rallying cries to destroy the West.

“Trump’s impudence knows no bounds but at home we already hear voices saying, ‘Thank God, things are looking up’ — what kind of ‘up’? That the Americans will dig the earth under Russian Kyiv?’ lamented Zakhar Prilepin, a nationalist pro-war writer, referring to a mineral deal Trump is expected to sign with Ukraine. “We are all for peace and negotiations. But if the above-described prospects are presented as unprecedented success, then this is not so.”

Some Russians also remained skeptical of Trump’s bold claims, particularly after the much-anticipated reset during his first presidency ended with Russia getting slapped with new rounds of sanctions.

“The highest expectations, if they don’t materialize, come with the highest disappointment,” warned Igor, a 33-year-old IT specialist from St. Petersburg.

The Kremlin official, however, said that any anti-American sentiment in the country was not about the people but about the governments. “You know, when a Russian says that America is our enemy, he doesn’t mean Americans. He means the American administration in Washington.”

He admitted that while “we were enemies of [the] previous administration,” with the new administration “there is a change in position.”

Russia also still faces a host of economic and social challenges that the war distracted people from, said Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian sociologist and scholar based in Berlin. She expects the “outburst of jubilation” at the end of hostilities to be short-lived.

“People are tired, and tired of being scared, and strive for any kind of end, for an event that they can interpret as a return to normalcy,” she said. “Spoiler: They will be disappointed.”

But for others, just the thought of a Russia no longer at war is a new and exciting sensation.

“There is not much optimism in general, but I can say that just until very recently there was none at all,” the Moscow dentist said.

Francesca Ebel in Moscow contributed to this report.

Mary Ilyushina, a reporter on the Foreign Desk of The Washington Post, covers Russia and the region. She began her career in independent Russian media before joining CNN’s Moscow bureau as a field producer in 2017. She has been with The Post since 2021. She speaks Russian, English, Ukrainian and Arabic.

Natalia Abbakumova is a researcher for The Washington Post’s Moscow Bureau.