If you had been paying attention you would know they did nothing but make negotiations with Russia more difficult.
Negotiations with Russia for WHAT?
Do you really think we need Russia for anything?
Putin is an extremely dangerous man, and if you oppose him in any way, he simply murders you or arrests you forever...he and his oligarchs have STOLEN all of his citizens resources and money and used it solely to benefit themselves, while the citizens struggle....
I would like to see his political opponents running against him not get killed or arrested for some obscure made up charge, and actually, freely, be able to run against Putin...and I would like to see Putin, PAY for his crimes in Prison forever.
I would love to see the Russian people, truly Free, and see them prosper.
There is no way to end the fighting in Syria or in eastern Europe without the cooperation of Russia, so if you have no interest in these issues, then you might not need to deal with Putin, but if you do, you need to deal with Putin. Putin has better than an 80% approval rating from the Russian people, so unless you believe all Russians are monsters you should realize that your opinions are nothing but bigotry. Putin tried negotiating with Bush and with Obama, but both of them ignored Russia's legitimate security concerns and the idiot Obama responded by sending thousands of US troops to countries bordering Russia and holding joint military exercises on the Russian border. Considering that the Obama administration used the Justice Department and intelligence services to try to influence the election in favor of Clinton, we should not be looking down our noses at what passes for democracy in Russia or even in Turkey.
He does not have an 80% approval rating.
Negotiating with Putin is waste of time and dangerous to people who don't know that. Trump won't negotiate with him. But he will genuinely ignore him and hope you will too.
According to Gallup:
"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Tens of thousands of Russians turned out to protest against government corruption last weekend, but since 2014, neither corruption -- nor a failing economy -- has hurt Russians' approval ratings of President Vladimir Putin. Russians' approval of their president remains undiminished from the high ratings they have given him since Russia's annexation of Crimea three years ago. More than eight in 10 Russians (81%) in 2016, Gallup's most recent year of polling in the country, said they approved of the job Putin is doing."
So how badly has Putin been hurt by Obama's sanctions?
"Putin's unfaltering popularity has been remarkable because it appears to be untied to his country's recent economic troubles. Russians' approval of Putin has remained buoyant -- even ticking slightly upward -- amid plunging oil prices, years of recession and Western sanctions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine.
While Russians have not soured on Putin, they have on their economy. After a short-lived rally in 2014, Russians' optimism about the outlook for their national and local economies has continued to wane, dropping to levels in 2016 that rivaled the recent lows in 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis. Just 14% of Russians in 2016 said their national economy was getting better, and 18% said this about their local economies."
Economic Problems, Corruption Fail to Dent Putin's Image
The Russian people see Putin as the hero who saved Russia from the political and economic chaos and the lawlessness that followed the dissolution of the USSR. Obama's sanctions have hurt the Russian people, but the fact that Putin has not bent to them has enhanced his standing as a hero to the Russian people.
In order to get Gorbachev to liberate the satellite states, all members of the Warsaw Pact, Bush41 promised Gorbachev they would remain neutral and the US would prevent them from joining NATO, an organization formed specifically to right Russia. Bill Clinton broke that promise and allowed several of these states to join NATO. The Russian government protested, but Russia was still in the throes of the post USSR chaos and was so weak, it couldn't even pay the salaries of its military, so Clinton ignored Russia's protests.
Bush43 also ignored Putin's complaints that the US had broken its promise and allowing these states into NATO threatened the security of Russia, and Bush responded by proposing NATO put missiles and long range radars in these same states. Putin had by now stabilized Russia and tired of being ignored he responded by chasing a western backed government out of Georgia. The US fumed but still refused to address Russia's legitimate concerns about NATO troops being stationed on Russia's borders.
Obama backed down a bit, probably more out of anti Bush bias rather than any policy considerations, and moved the missiles and radars to ships instead of stationing them in former Warsaw Pact nations, but he still but he was still positioning NATO weapons right on Russia's borders, and when Russia complained about that, Obama sent thousands of US troops to NATO states on Russia's border and held joint military exercises near the border. When the West began aggressively wooing Ukraine, Russia found this latest threat to its security intolerable, and took measures to secure key areas to protect Russia from NATO.
If you still can't understand why Putin has an 81% (Gallup last month) approval rating, consider that Kennedy, a mediocre president on his very best days by any standard, became a great hero by standing up to the perceived Russian threat on our borders in the Cuba missile crisis, and then perhaps you can understand why Putin, already a great Russian hero for pulling post USSR Russia out of its downward spiral, has become an even greater hero by standing up to the perceived US threat on its borders.
Ever since the second Clinton administration the US has followed your advice to ignore Russia's concerns about its legitimate security concerns and he result is the beginning of a new Cold War which will hurt everyone. President Trump is the world's best hope of bringing peace to eastern Europe and Syria because he appears to be willing to break the pattern on provoking Russian fears and then demonizing Russia for complaining about it. Hopefully, President Trump will enter negotiations with Putin to sufficiently allay Russian fears of NATO troops on its borders in return for Russia allowing these states to manage their own affairs without Russian meddling; in other words, reinstate the agreement between Bush41 and Gorbachev Clinton reneged on. In Syria the solution is simple. Allow Putin to withdraw from this costly and unpopular war as a victor by offering US support in all appropriate international forums for Russia keeping its Mediterranean bases in return for Russian cooperation in getting all foreign actors such as Iran and Saudi Arabia out of Syria so that the future of Syria can be decided by the Syrian people.
they make those surveys themselves and are a bit choosy at it. 
