In 2013, the Russian president awarded Tillerson Badge of Friendship in a show of gratitude in response to Tillerson's efforts made aimed at boosting energy cooperation with Russia.
Second, Tillerson was instrumental in trade cooperation with Russia and he was a major partner for Russian energy companies. Tillerson's dealings in Russia involved joint venture projects with national oil companies in order to have preferential access to energy resources. When Tillerson took over as ExxonMobil chief he pursued this strategy in Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Russia. This method of partnership allowed national oil companies to benefit from the technical power and sufficient capital of the United States. Following the same strategy, ExxonMobil managed to find a strategic partner in Russia and reach agreement with Rosneft. ExxonMobil and Rosneft have agreed to conduct exploration and development projects in the Black Sea. It was a great advantage for Rosneft as it had limited experience in deep water exploration. For financing the project, Kremlin developed an offshore tax regime for ExxonMobil in order to sweeten the contract. This deal was of such strategic importance to Moscow that Putin in person attended the signing ceremony.
Also in 2011, ExxonMobil reached agreement with Rosneft, whose 75% of shares the Russian government owns, in 2011 for the US company to discover oil in Arctic and Siberia. It also gave Rosneft the chance to operate in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. This agreement was signed only a few months after BP attempted a similar contract and failed.
During the signing ceremony, the Russian president said his country would fully support ExxonMobil. He noted that Tillerson could increase his $200 to $300 billion direct investment in this project to $500 billion. After that, 11 more contracts were signed between ExxonMobil and Rosneft.
Third, Tillerson was a critical of US sanctions imposed on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine. He believed that these sanctions would harm US-Russia relations. For instance in 2014, addressing the General Assembly of ExxonMobil shareholders, he openly criticized the sanctions imposed on Russia as they resulted in the suspension of one of its contracts with Rosneft.
When Tillerson, who has been a longtime friend of Putin and Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft and former deputy prime minister of Russia, realized that his company's name was in the list of companies banned to trade with Russia considered the US-EU sanctions harmful.
Tillerson's approach vis-à-vis Russia and his close cooperation with Putin and Russian companies strengthened speculation that his appointment at the post of secretary of state would cause a significant jump in Moscow-Washington relations. Tillerson in his new post created hope that a new atmosphere would take shape in the relations between the two countries as he is close to Russian politicians. That caused worries in the US Congress, but was welcomed in Russia.
However, the turn of time showed that one could not place much hope in an improvement in the US-Russia ties. Political and security differences between the two countries in different geopolitical sectors stymie better ties between Moscow and Washington. That is why Tillerson was not received warmly during his first visit as US secretary of state to Russia.
In his capacity as ExxonMobil CEO, Tillerson was able to expand his oil company’s ties with Russia, but as secretary of state he would not be influential enough to bring any improvement due to deep-seated differences between the two countries. Of course Trump and his supporters believe that Tillerson is able to separate political and economic issues and empower US companies particularly oil and gas firms to operate projects in Russia.
The accuracy or fallacy of such an impression would be known after some time.