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By Ira Katznelson
$17.82
By Gretchen Morgenson, Joshua Rosner
$17.04
$23
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By William Pfaff — Thanks to Russia’s incursion into a belligerent Georgia in mid-August, a country in possession of Washington’s assurance that it soon would be given a “membership action plan” for joining NATO now hasn’t a hope of membership in the alliance.
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AP photo / Musa Sadulayev
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Russia announced Wednesday its willingness to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia if, and only if, some conditions were met: one, bring international peacekeepers in to replace Russian soldiers and, two, Georgia must sign nonaggression pacts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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By William Pfaff — NATO has now been broken because it was used by the United States and the European NATO members as a tool for expanding Western power into the Russian “near abroad,” and after that, to make an inexplicably rash and dangerous effort to break into and split off portions of the Russian empire as it existed in the 19th century—long before the Soviet Union existed.
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boston.com
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Georgia announced Friday that it will withdraw all Georgian diplomats from its embassy in Moscow in protest of Russian soldiers’ presence in the country. Russia is expected to pull its own diplomats from its embassy in Tbilisi, but of course its troops will still be stationed in Georgian territory if Georgia really needs to talk.
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Republic of Slovenia / BOBO
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Based on information from Russian defense officials and, no doubt, years of KGB savvy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has surmised that the U.S. provoked the Georgia conflict in order to give John McCain a boost: “The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of U.S. president.”
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Russian officials beg to differ with Western critics who claim that Russia’s ongoing presence in the Georgian port town of Poti violates the terms of the cease-fire agreement between the neighboring nations, insisting that the remaining Russian forces are of the peacekeeping, not the combative, variety.
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By Eugene Robinson — There’s a candidate in this presidential race who remains a mystery—hazy, undefined, so full of contradictions that voters may see electing him as an enormous risk. I’m referring to the cipher known as John McCain.
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By Patrick J. Buchanan —
For reasons too numerous to fit into a short summary, Pat Buchanan isn’t someone whose writings we’d routinely pick up on this site. However, in this case his essay about the Georgia-Russia conflict, er, bears repeating here, if only to illustrate how not all conservatives see the recent clash in Eastern Europe the way the Bush administration does.
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On Saturday, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed the French-brokered peace treaty already inked by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. However, this is clearly an uneasy and tentative truce: Russian officials say their troops will stay in Georgia for an indefinite time.
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“Unfortunately, today we are looking evil directly in the eye,” an emotional Mikheil Saakashvili said Friday after he signed a cease-fire agreement to end his country’s eight-day showdown with Russia. The Georgian president declared that other European nations ignored clear signs of impending conflict last spring and he hinted that trouble could also be in store for other countries.
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youtube.com
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After spending several hours in a diplomatic huddle behind closed doors with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Friday signed a cease-fire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Saakashvili, however, made it clear during a follow-up news conference that “this is not a done deal yet.”
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Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev appeared on “Larry King Live” Thursday to give his read on the Georgia-Russia conflict, asserting that Georgia was definitively the first to attack, in “a barbaric assault” on Tskhinvali, and that “there was support and protection” for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from ... elsewhere in the world. Updated
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AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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By Bill Boyarsky — Forget the moderate image, promoted by an admiring media. Forget the so-called straight talk and independence. With the Russian-Georgian war winding down, McCain has firmly established himself as an old-fashioned Cold Warrior and a supporter of the huge oil companies that have a big stake in Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus.
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With the worst timing imaginable, the U.S. and Poland announced a missile shield deal on Thursday, which prompted a Russian general to strut like a peacock and threaten to punish the land of pirogi. The proposed missile shield has been a go-to irritant for President Bush to use on old friend Vladimir Putin, and for an obvious reason: It works.
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Wikipedia Commons
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They aren’t as big, and their iconography is nowhere near Soviet-grade, but according to columnist Anne Penketh of London’s The Independent, the Russians’ Georgia invasion can only be seen as a rank humiliation of the West by a triumphant Vladimir Putin.
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AP photo, Mary Altaffer / Irakli Gedeniedze, pool
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By Robert Scheer — Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
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AP photo / Georgy Abdaladze
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Early Wednesday morning, Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili agreed to a plan to stop the fighting that flared up Friday. However, the crisis isn’t over and the terms of the agreement aren’t all clear.
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Right, so Vladimir Putin’s criticism about the Western media’s coverage of the ongoing clash between Russia and Georgia is certainly not completely unfounded, but media bias isn’t confined to the West. Consider this recent story from Russian news source Pravda.ru, headlined “Russia: Again Savior of Peace and Life.”
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In case you missed it, here’s part of President Bush’s sit-down with NBC’s Olympic host Bob Costas on Sunday, during which a somewhat squirmy Bush talked about what he said to Vladimir Putin during the opening festivities, lamenting how the fighting in Georgia was conflicting with the spirit of the Olympics.
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AP photo / Musa Sadulayev
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For those who never heard of South Ossetia before fighting between Russians and Georgians erupted there, the BBC’s Paul Reynolds provides some needed background and analysis, including this pearl of wisdom: “Do not punch a bear on the nose unless it is tied down.”
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guardian.co.uk
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Georgia bombed separatists in the country’s South Ossetia region Tuesday evening, killing 25; Russia rolled an estimated 150 tanks into Georgia in retaliation, ostensibly to defend the region’s high Russian immigrant population. Georgia pleads its case as a “freedom-loving” nation to garner U.S. support; any semblance of logic retreats.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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Forty-six years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants “to rebuild our positions in Cuba” by strengthening economic cooperation with the island nation. The push could be a retort to America’s resolve to build a missile shield on Russia’s doorstep.
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michaelfowlkes.com
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Forging an agreement with the Czech Republic to host the radar for the United States’ planned missile shield project represents, according to Condoleezza Rice, a way of making the missile defense system “transparent to the Russians.” Officials in Moscow, however, are inclined to take this latest move as a hostile gesture that could provoke military retaliation.
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The World Newspaper Congress played host to Gary Kasparov on Tuesday. The chess wiz and Kremlin antagonist ridiculed his government for imposing limits on free expression. Indeed, Reporters Without Borders’ most recent annual index of global press freedom ranks Russia a dismal 144th. Still, there are plenty of places in the world where you can get beaten, arrested or killed for letting people know what’s going on.
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Flickr / openDemocracy
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A day after giving up Russia’s presidency (as required by that pesky constitution), Vladimir Putin assumed the role of prime minister. Anyone want to bet that doesn’t suddenly become the most powerful job in Russia?
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Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland, Germany —
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Russia and the U.S. are picking sides in the conflict over Kosovo’s bid for independence from Serbia. Washington’s support of Kosovo led to last week’s protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, and now Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who may well be next to lead Russia, has reaffirmed that his country will stand behind Serbia. Medvedev commented Monday during a visit to Belgrade.
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AP photo / Javier Galeano
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By Robert Scheer — The Cuban president, who is resigning after five decades in power, has caused his people suffering, but the giant to the north bears even greater responsibility for the island’s plight.
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bfs-zh.ch
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Vladimir Putin isn’t taking the expansion of NATO and a planned missile shield lightly. The Russian president told his people: “It is already clear that a new phase in the arms race is unfolding in the world. ... It is not our fault, because we did not start it.” Flush with oil money, Russia is planning to beef up and flaunt its military capabilities in response.
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time.com
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Time magazine has decided to celebrate “order before freedom,” as the newsweekly put it, with its “person of the year” selection, because “if Russia succeeds as a nation-state in the family of nations, it will owe much of that success to one man, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”
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Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland, Germany —
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Olle Johansson, Sweden —
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The results of Sunday’s parliamentary election in Russia, which resulted in a sweeping victory for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and signaled that the president will stay in power beyond the end of his second term next spring, are being questioned on a national and international scale.
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robertamsterdam.com
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Although term limits require Russian President Vladimir Putin to step down in May, many, including chess wizard and opposition leader Garry Kasparov, have speculated that he will find some way to maintain his influence. Putin, it seems, agrees, saying that if his party wins the next election, he will have the “moral right to hold those in the Duma and the Cabinet responsible for the implementation” of his policies.
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On Friday night, not long after Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked the historical specter of the Cuban missile crisis in reference to President Bush’s planned missile shield in Europe, the U.S. successfully carried out another missile defense test off the coast of Kauai.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Bush’s proposed missile shield in Europe could create a situation analogous to the Cuban missile crisis. He added, “It’s not the same and we’re not enemies. I can call President Bush my friend. But we’ve put forward solutions and we haven’t yet received any answer.”
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AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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Let’s review these key ingredients from a White House news conference on Wednesday and see if they remind us of anything, shall we? We had: President G. W. Bush—check! Fear-mongering about weapons that a Middle Eastern nation is allegedly developing—check! Accusations from the Bush administration about said Middle Eastern nation lying about said weapons to the U.N.—check!
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AP photo / RIA Novosti / Mikhail Klimentyev / Presidential Press Service
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Continuing to broadcast a clear message of disapproval to the U.S. regarding its foreign policy and commercial interests abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Tuesday to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and to present a unified front against Washington’s possible plans vis-à-vis Iran.
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ired.com
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George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin used to have a loving relationship, but the two have grown cold and distant in recent years. Bush blames Russia’s deteriorating democratic process, while Putin is upset because the U.S. wants to build a missile shield on his doorstep. Bush’s friend Condi stopped by Moscow to try to smooth things over, but it looks like it didn’t go too well.
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President Vladimir Putin dissolved the Russian government in a move designed to clear out the upper levels of power before his expected exit from office in the spring. Among those ousted in Wednesday’s Kremlin shakeup was Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, who may be replaced by his first deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov.
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Great—along with the United States’ ongoing (and escalating) international debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current administration has clearly worked its particular brand of diplomatic charm on Russia. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country’s air force is once again sending nuclear-equipped bombers on regular overseas patrols.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin once gazed into each other’s eyes and each found a friend, but developments with a proposed missile defense shield, Iran and Kosovo have strained the relationship. So the two have scheduled some male-bonding time at the Bush family resort in Kennebunkport, Maine, where they’ll try to relieve some of their tension by fishing.
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AP Photo / David Zalubowski
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates is shooting down a proposition from Russia to swap out the U.S.‘s planned missile shield in Eastern Europe for a radar system in Azerbaijan, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, ABC News reports that higher-ups from Russia’s Energia Space Rocket Corp. are concerned that U.S.-originated equipment aboard the space station may have caused a “fatal flaw” in the works.
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AP Photo / ITAR-TASS
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) isn’t showing any sign of softening up in his response to the U.S. government’s plans to install an anti-missile shield in Europe. Meanwhile, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dramatically announced that Israel’s days are numbered.
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AP Photo / Hans Punz
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Relations between the U.S. and Russia may be strained by the Bush administration’s planned implementation of an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin had strong words for the U.S. Tuesday as Kremlin officials proudly unveiled new missiles—a month before Putin and President Bush will meet in Kennebunkport, Maine.
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bbc.co.uk
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After six months, a potential lead has emerged in the murder case of Russian expatriate Alexander Litvinenko (pictured), who died in England last November after allegedly being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. However, the suspect, former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi, denies that he had a hand in Litvinenko’s death, according to the BBC.
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AP Photo/ITAR-TASS, Presidential Press Service, Mikhail Klimentyev
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, awaiting a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, compared U.S. foreign policy to that of the Nazis in the 1930s. Meanwhile, Rice criticized Putin’s administration for centralizing too much power at the Kremlin.
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AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel
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Russian President Vladimir Putin took a moment during his final parliamentary address to make it eminently clear that he disapproves of a U.S. plan to create a missile shield in Eastern Europe, vowing to put a hold on Russian compliance with a key European military treaty in retaliation.
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