The Democrats’ demagogic use of Russia-gate to “resist” President Trump is putting progressives in league with warmongers and war contractors while postponing a serious assessment of the party’s political problems, warns Norman Solomon.
Russia’s Putin would consider meeting Obama at U.N.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend next month’s U.N. General Assembly in New York and would “consider constructively” any request for a meeting there with President Barack Obama, Russia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Relations between Russia and the West hit a post-Cold War low over Ukraine, where Moscow annexed Crimea from Kiev last year and where Washington and Brussels say it is driving a separatist pro-Russian revolt in the east.
Feinstein: No Evidence Of Russian Collusion With Trump Campaign (RealClearPolitics)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), pressed twice by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer for evidence, said she still has seen none that would show collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Civilians killed in Ukraine amid fears for fragile ceasefire
Several civilians were killed by shelling in eastern Ukraine on Sunday night, amid a surge in violence that has raised fears of a return to full-scale hostilities between government forces and Russian-backed separatists.
Warner on Russia probe: ‘We have no smoking gun at this point (The Hill)
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Sunday said the Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to find a smoking gun as it investigates Russia’s meddling in the United States election.
“Soft Power”: The Values that Shape Russian Foreign Policy
In the increasingly frigid environment of U.S.-Russia relations, much attention is given to what may be seen as Russia’s strategic “interests.” (Of course, much of the policymaking class in the West seems to suggest that Russia is entitled to no “interests” whatsoever.) Of at least equal significance for understanding Russian attitudes, however, is a grasp of the values, the moral framework for Russia’s foreign policy.
Syria: Still a No-Win Situation (Paul Pillar)
Russia has succeeded, at a cost acceptable to it, in achieving its objectives of shoring up its only client regime in the Middle East, securing its modest naval and air presence in the country, and demonstrating that it still is a player to be reckoned with in that part of the world.
Eastern Ukraine needs help, not isolation
The Aug. 9 editorial “An untenable position” recommended Kiev continue isolating the rebel-controlled provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine. The majority of those left inside the blockade are the old, the infirm and the financially destitute — the ones who can’t leave.
These people are not terrorists or Russian collaborators
We may owe our lives to a back channel with Russia (Evan Thomas)
Jared Kushner is not the first member of a presidential family to try to open a back channel with the Kremlin. John F. Kennedy’s brother Robert met secretly with a Soviet intelligence agent named Georgi Bolshakov many times during the Kennedy administration. Their dealings illustrate the shortcomings and dangers of informal high-level diplomacy — but also the potential for breakthrough in a crisis.
OSCE Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Reports Escalating Violence
Positioned in “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”)-controlled city centre Donetsk, the SMM throughout the night heard over a hundred explosions – both incoming and outgoing – mostly at locations to the north-west. Earlier in the day – positioned 1km south-east of the destroyed “DPR”-controlled airport (9km north-west of Donetsk) – the SMM heard 67 explosions between 08:15 and 10:55hrs; and an additional 26 between 13:00 and 15:45hrs.
The Kissinger Backchannel to Moscow (Gareth Porter)
Major U.S. media outlets insinuate that President Trump’s advisers are traitors for secretly talking to Russians, but they ignore the history of Henry Kissinger doing the same thing for Richard Nixon, writes Gareth Porter.
BREAKING: Russia, Kiev Trade Charges Over New Violence in Eastern Ukraine
he Russian and Ukrainian governments traded allegations Monday over an uptick in violence in eastern Ukraine, as Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a visit to the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from its neighbor last year.
This is why presidents want back channels and how it can go wrong (Richard A. Moss)
The use of back channels, such as special emissaries and personal intermediaries, is almost as old as diplomacy itself.
Nobody loves Russia: how western media have perpetuated the myth of Putin’s ‘neo-Soviet autocracy’
Advocates of Western-style democracy frequently assert that Russia has built a neo-Soviet ‘autocratic’ political system with elements of totalitarianism. Struggling to understand the country’s transition from the USSR, Western media commonly describe Russia in terms of its fitting with the old pattern
Rep. Jamie Raskin On The Latest Russia Allegations
Max Blumenthal talks to Congressman Jamie Raskin, who has suddenly become a champion of regime-change.
Undelivered Goods: How $1.8 billion in aid to Ukraine was stolen
Arriving home from a recent trip to Ukraine, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle reported his joy at witnessing “the Ukrainian people . . . coming together to rebuild their country from scratch.” Ukrainians had, he wrote, moved him with their dreams of joining the European Union, fighting corruption, and rebuilding their shattered economy, inspiring Daschle, now a highly paid lobbyist, to endorse the ominously strengthening Washington consensus on escalating the fighting with “$3 billion in lethal and nonlethal military assistance.”
The Latest: France says no trace of Russian hacking Macron (AP)
The head of the French government’s cyber security agency, which investigated leaks from President Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign, says they found no trace of a notorious Russian hacking group behind the attack.
Russia and Ukraine: Back on the Brink of War?
The Iran deal is taking up most of the energy and attention of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. But Washington—along with America’s European allies—must be prepared for the likelihood that there could be a full-scale resumption of hostilities. If fighting resumes, there is no excuse for the West to be taken by surprise.
WSJ’s Kim Strassel: Russia-Kushner Hysteria “Completely Divorced From Reality”
Strassel: Back channels are completely normal. They happen all the time. Reagan did them. Obama did them. Everyone did. So I’m not quite sure why supposedly having, at least the president’s now elected, setting up a back channel with the Russians is somehow out of bounds.
Russia Steps Up Calls to Dismantle European Antimissile System
Russia stepped up its calls Friday to dismantle the missile defense system being built in Europe by the U.S. and its allies, saying that the recent nuclear deal with Iran undercuts Washington’s chief argument for the system.