Speaking to the French Minister of Defense this February, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates purportedly said that “Russian democracy has disappeared” and that “the government was an oligarchy run by the security services.” Fast forward to a CNN broadcast scheduled to air tonight, where the Batman of Russia’s oligarchy, Prime …
Last Friday, Russian prosecutors asked for a new, 14-year new prison term for the former YUKOS oil company CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev. The two are Russia’s most famous political prisoners. They have already spent seven years in jail for alleged tax violations, an accusation most …
According to international press reports, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is planning to visit Russia, Belarus, and Iran later next week. In Moscow, he will sign a series of agreements on trade and technology. The Obama Administration needs to let its Moscow counterparts know that unbridled support of a mercurial Latin …
The appearance of a government-sponsored Putin 2012 cyrillic websites pretty much clinches the major question in Russian politics: Will Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, “National Leader” and the former President of Russia, run for (and, by definition, win) the Russian presidency? There are no “Medvedev 2012″ websites registered so far. In …
In yesterday’s New York Times, International Herald Tribune columnist Roger Cohen reported: “Since taking office, President Obama has reached out to the Muslim world as a whole, to China, to Turkey and to Iran, but has devoted scant serious diplomatic energy to Europe.” Cohen then went on to quote prominent …
In the latest anti-Western rant, the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has blamed the United States and the West for once again thwarting bilateral relations with Russia by deploying missile defense in Europe and “lying” about NATO enlargement. However, his statements are clearly political propaganda intended for internal consumption and …
Almost a year ago, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez told President Obama, “I want to be your friend.” Today the much-photographed handshake at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad has become a cold shoulder. Sadly like much of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, relations with arch-anti-American Hugo Chavez have fallen …
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Moscow to speed up the completion of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty follow-on agreement with Russia continues to highlight the difficulty of dealing with Moscow even when the two countries ostensibly share common interests. Although Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed an agreement …
During his State of the Union Speech President Obama underscored his goal of “getting to zero” nuclear weapons by citing Ronald Reagan’s aspirations for a world without nuclear weapons: I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan through a strategy that reverses the spread of these …
President Barack Obama’s Russia policy is defined by the Administration’s view that America is overstretched globally, and that without assistance from a major power, such as Russia or China, Washington cannot achieve its goals. Some in the Administration believe that America is in decline and their job is to manage …
