Former US Ambassador to the USSR and ACEWA Founding Board Member, Jack Matlock, gave an address at the Union League Club of Chicago in February titled, Russia Under Putin: How to Work With Him.
Patrick Lawrence: Robert Parry believed in the possibilities of our craft
A legendary reporter who broke the Iran-contra story, Bob Parry left the mainstream media and blazed his own path.
Ukraine PM challenges president to ‘back me or sack me (FT)
Ukraine’s prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk has challenged president Petro Poroshenko to “back me or sack me”, saying decisive action is the only way out of the country’s month-long political crisis that risks triggering early elections and derailing pro-western reforms.
Stephen F. Cohen: Russiagate is Dangerous, Will Washington Get the Memo?
The partisan fight over Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo is consuming Washington and even leading prominent liberals to question if Nunes is a Russian agent. Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University, says Russiagate has now become “much more than McCarthyism.”
Russia’s Oil Dilemma, Explained (Bloomberg)
While the world focuses on Russia’s oil-freeze talks with OPEC, there are discussions behind closed doors in the Kremlin that will have a much more significant impact on the nation’s energy industry.
The Hill: Facebook tells Congress it can’t prove or disprove Trump-Russia collusion
Facebook informed Congress in newly released documents that it could not prove or disprove collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russians who may have used the online platform to try to sway opinions during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Washington DC vs Warsaw: Reflections on the Current Tensions (Peter S. Rieth)
The present tensions between Washington DC and Warsaw over the Polish constitutional crisis are a function of the unfortunate policies of both governments regarding plans to increase American military presence in Poland. If Warsaw did not insist on this increase, the United States would have little interest in Poland’s internal political partisanship. [Read more…] about Washington DC vs Warsaw: Reflections on the Current Tensions (Peter S. Rieth)
Fred Weir: Politics over peace? Critics say Ukraine’s president sidelining Minsk accords.
President Poroshenko is set to sign a bill that will redefine the conflict between Kiev and Eastern rebels. But the goal of the legislation seems to be less about ending the fighting and more about winning upcoming elections.
Why Ukraine needs Russia more than ever (Nicolai Petro)
The destruction of Ukraine’s industrial base, which is heavily concentrated in the east, shifts the balance of economic and political power to the western regions, permanently marginalising opposing political voices…This is not a policy that the west can endorse.
Patrick Lawrence: Washington can’t adjust to losing its role as global sheriff, and the entire world must bear the consequences
The Trump administration announced still more sanctions to punish Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis and its reclamation of Crimea after the U.S.- cultivated coup in Kiev four years ago. These cover nine companies and 21 people, all either Russian or citizens of the Ukrainian provinces rebelling against the post-coup government in Kiev.
Putin’s Bite is Worse than His Bark – should we have been surprised? (Peter Hitchens)
Excerpts from a House of Lords EU subcommittee report on Russia notes that “Moscow feared that the 2010 Kharkiv Agreements, which had extended the Russian Navy’s lease of Sevastopol as a base for 25 years from 2017 until 2042, would be renounced….On 1 March 2014, three former Ukrainian Presidents, Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko, called on the new government to renounce the Kharkiv Agreements.”
Leonid Bershidsky: The U.S. List of Russian Oligarchs Is a Disgrace
The U.S. Treasury Department spent six months compiling lists of Russian political leaders and “oligarchs” as required by last year’s sanctions legislation. The end result is a bizarre cut-and-paste job where some of the inclusions, and some of the omissions, make little sense.
Beyond a New Cold War (John Pepper)
The threats of terrorism, failed states and civil wars cannot be resolved without respectful collaboration between Russia and the United States, says the former CEO of Procter & Gamble and ACEWA Founding Board Member John Pepper. Pepper’s remarks were delivered on a panel, “Beyond a New Cold War?” on February 17th in New York City on a panel co-sponsored by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and ACEWA.
Meduza: Russian officials respond to new ‘Kremlin list’
Meduza collects some of the first reactions from Russian officials appearing in the news and on social media.
Russian hostility ‘partly caused by west’, claims former US defence head (The Guardian)
The current level of hostility in US-Russian relations was caused in part by Washington’s contemptuous treatment of Moscow’s security concerns in the aftermath of the cold war, a former US defence secretary has said.
Edward Lozansky: The poor state of U.S.-Russia relations does not serve American interests
Why is the U.S. so adamant about maintaining a permanent adversarial relationship with the one country on the planet with which it is imperative America carry on a constructive dialogue?
Ukraine `Running Out of Time’ to Resolve Political Crisis (Bloomberg)
Ukraine’s parliament speaker said the nation is “running out of time” to resolve its political crisis, reiterating calls for a government shake-up to end months of infighting that’s jeopardizing the flow of international aid.
Paul Robinson: Fear-mongering, Pure and Simple
‘Russia is ready to kill us by the thousands’. So reads a headline in today’s Daily Telegraph, one of Britain’s leading daily, allegedly high-brow (i.e. non-tabloid), newspapers.
Notions of ‘Russian threat’ are nothing more than new Cold War rhetoric (The Independent)
Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian Ambassador to Britain, writes that a “truly cooperative approach to conflict resolution on a realistic basis has no sound alternatives.”
Leonid Bershidsky: Release the Dutch Evidence of the DNC Hack
Specific evidence linking Russian intelligence to the DNC hack would dramatically change the current picture of limited attempts at interference via Facebook and the state-owned network Russia Today, especially if it could also be shown that material obtained in that Russian hack surfaced on Wikileaks. It serves no purpose to keep that kind of information from the public.