This week the State Department has placed some 64 Russian officials on a visa blacklist that would prevent them from entering the United States. These Russian prosecutors and policemen all played a role in the death of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the most famous whistleblower in post–communist Russian history. While the Foreign Ministry in Moscow loudly protested that the U.S. is being tough on Russia, the imposition of sanctions looks more like the State Department’s pre-emptive way to prevent the Senate’s Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011 …
On September 22, 2010, a few months before the Senate ratified the New START treaty, a bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. New START is, of course, the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia. Ever since the blast, many have raised questions as to who have would directly attacked the United States. Initially, Georgia’s assertions that Russia was behind the blast were dismissed on both the left and the right as a baseless allegation attempting “to stoke anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S.” However, The Washington …
This week, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov visited Washington to sign agreements on child adoption, visas, and nuclear safety. In reality, however, what Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration are hailing as symbols of closer cooperation between the two countries are only a façade to cover up the lack of progress on the more critical issues dividing the two countries: Iran, missile defense, and human rights. Lavrov and Clinton both agreed that it is time for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to go. In Lavrov underscored that the Libyan leader should …
Last week the government of Russia banned a center-right democratic opposition party from participating in elections. At the same time, the Kremlin propped up a small party led by a friendly oligarch. Despite his democratic rhetoric, President Dmitry Medvedev did nothing to uphold minimal democratic norms. As Heritage’s Ariel Cohen noted recently, the Obama Administration “bet on the wrong horse” when it engaged Medvedev as the lead contact for its “reset” of relations with Russia. Unfortunately, he did not deliver on democracy or other issues important to the U.S. A bipartisan …
