Last week, the U.S. Senate unanimously condemned Russia’s new draconian law—whose victims are Russian orphans and Russian democracy. Around Christmas last year, the Russian Duma hastily passed, and President Vladimir Putin signed, The Dima Yakovlev Law, named after an adopted child from Russia who died in 2008 after being abandoned …
Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that included language—called the Magnitsky Act—that for the first time punishes Russian officials implicated in serious human rights abuses. The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority—365 to 43—demonstrating strong bipartisan support. The Senate will vote on the Magnitsky Act and …
On November 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin sacked Defense Minister Anatoly E. Serdyukov, who has held the post since 2007. Serdyukov had overseen the largest and most radical military reform of the Russian armed forces since the creation of the Red Army in 1918. Under Serdyukov, a former furniture businessman …
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently oversaw a strategic exercise—including a series of coordinated missile tests—that drew on Russia’s nuclear “triad” (bombers, intercontinental-range ballistic missiles [ICBMs], and submarine-launched ballistic missiles [SLBMs]). Both the ICBM and the SLBM reached their respective targets after having traveled distances of more than 6,000 kilometers. Less …
The treatment inflicted on 41 Russian journalists in Moscow’s Radio Liberty office is nothing less than scandalous, and it threatens to silence American broadcasting into Russia for good. But what is even more scandalous is that it was not the Russian government that, without warning, shut those journalists out of …
Libya. Egypt. Syria. Iran. Russia. China. America’s relations with the world aren’t looking too good. President Obama said that in his Administration, America would reach out to other countries as “an equal partner” rather than as the “exceptional” nation that many before him had embraced; that “any world order that …
On October 7, millions of Venezuelans will vote for the man who will lead their country for the next six years. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s populist, authoritarian Goliath, is confident of victory. Despite battling cancer and working overtime to hide the consequences of 13 years of mismanagement, incompetence, and corruption, he …
On Wednesday, Under Secretary of Defense Jim Miller argued that the Obama Administration’s “reset” policy with Russia had succeeded. According to Miller, rapproachment with Russia has enabled the U.S. to diversify supply routes into Afghanistan and implement tough sanctions against Iran. Miller’s claim does not pass the reality test on …
