Putin

Did Trump’s coddling of Putin damage his approval rating?

Donald Trump has long been loath to concede that operatives of the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election, feeling as he does that the media like to talk about it mainly to suggest that he only defeated Hillary Clinton thanks to the aid of foreign troublemakers. It’s…

Hosted by Charlie Sykes

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Robert Zubrin reviews Timothy Snyder's 'The Road to Unfreedom'

The tension between peaceable nations and the Russian Federation intensifies with each passing week. It is the path Vladimir Putin has chosen. The latest development is more serious than it may sound: Russian billionaire and Putin crony Roman Abramovich has had his visa renewal application…

How Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko was forced to fake his death.

We would have more respect for Vladimir Putin if he simply dispensed with his country’s elections and declared himself president-for-life. This would spare us the idiotic burden of discussing the Russian state’s sexennial public-relations stunts. Everybody inside and outside the country knows the…

On March 18, the popular leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, will be reelected to another six-year term as president. This is both a plain statement of fact and a complete falsehood. In American political parlance, this statement can be taken literally, but not seriously.

The Obama administration will be remembered for a number of disgraces in foreign affairs, prominent among them its terrible deal with Iran and its dithering over the war in Syria. Deserving of a place on that list is America’s acquiescence in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, to which the Trump…

One of the more surprising revelations about Russia’s reported meddling in the 2016 election is that Moscow supported a raft of objectively anti-Trump, left-wing causes. First we learned that the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked organization, bought social media advertisements that…

When he won election, Donald Trump—along with his national security adviser Michael Flynn, his all-purpose counselor Stephen Bannon, and, perhaps, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—was fond of the idea that Russia and Iran, comrades-in-arms in Syria, weren’t natural partners. Flynn was particularly…

When he won election, Donald Trump—along with his national security adviser Michael Flynn, his all-purpose counselor Stephen Bannon, and, perhaps, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—was fond of the idea that Russia and Iran, comrades-in-arms in Syria, weren’t natural partners. Flynn was particularly…

The Trump administration is not ruling out providing Ukraine with defensive weapons in its fight against Russian-backed separatists, a State Department official told THE WEEKLY STANDARD, though the administration is focused on a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

During hearings with FBI Director James Comey and Adm. Mike Rogers, several Democrats joined ranking member Adam Schiff (D-CA) in claiming that the GOP's platform position on Russia was weakened at this summer's convention. Democrats suggested this weakening was a result of Russia's influence on…

Arizona senator John McCain strongly condemned any attempt to draw a moral equivalence between the United States and Vladimir Putin's Russia Tuesday, after President Donald Trump appeared to suggest such an equivalence over the weekend.

Republican senators are threatening to codify sanctions against the Kremlin amid speculation that President Donald Trump will ease the sanctions and refusal from the Trump team to commit to maintaining or increasing them.

Even as the media, and all of Washington, buzzed with scandalous uncorroborated claims about President-elect Donald Trump's ties to the Kremlin, a lesser-noticed moment neatly illustrated another side of Trump's—or Trump-era conservatism's—Russia problem. After Marco Rubio grilled Rex Tillerson at…

Even as the media, and all of Washington, buzzed with scandalous uncorroborated claims about President-elect Donald Trump’s ties to the Kremlin, a lesser-noticed moment neatly illustrated another side of Trump's—or Trump-era conservatism's—Russia problem. After Marco Rubio grilled Rex Tillerson at…

The Syrian regime has established control over eastern Aleppo, a previously rebel-held section of the city, according to a top Russian official.

Top Republican senators tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD they don't know what a Donald Trump administration will mean for Ukraine, but they plan on urging his team to support the country in its fight against Russian aggression regardless.

During an appearance on Russia Today, a television network funded by the Russian government, Donald Trump said Thursday that it was "pretty unlikely" that the Kremlin is interfering in the 2016 election, though U.S. intelligence officials have claimed otherwise.

Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger said Monday that Donald Trump should look into his campaign's reported ties to the Kremlin and pro-Putin figures in Ukraine.

Someone has played a rotten trick on the late Scoop Jackson. The legendary senator from the great state of Washington was a committed cold warrior who saw the Soviet Union for the evil empire it was, and until his death in 1983 used all his powers of persuasion to drag the McGovernized Democratic…

Donald Trump told Sean Hannity that he's "honored" by Vladimir Putin's endorsement of him:

In an article for Mosaic, Michael Doran writes:

Last week an Obama administration official bragged that the White House’s Syria policy is working out just as planned. Special envoy for Syria Michael Ratney said that the “Russians wouldn’t have to help [Bashar al-]Assad if we didn’t weaken him.”

On Sunday, October 4, the Central Asian former-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan held national elections to its 120-member parliament. The main incumbent party, the reforming Social Democrats (SDPK) were returned to power, and the ruling president, Almazbek Atambayev, who is their leader, gained a…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on what Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have in common: they both want Iranian dominance in the Middle East.

Let me risk ridicule by mentioning the ruthless Vladimir Putin and the clueless Joe Biden in the same sentence: The emergence of Putin abroad and Biden at home could reshape the 2016 Republican presidential race.

It's been two weeks since a majority of Congress sought to register its disapproval of the Iran deal but fell short of the votes necessary to break a filibuster or override a presidential veto, and most politicians and commentators have moved on.

Even now with the Russians on the verge of combat operations in Syria, the White House still says it believes that they’re there to fight ISIS. John Kerry says that his Russian counterpart told him that the Russians are “only interested in fighting” the Islamic State. Other administration officials…

In a speech today about the Iran deal at the Brookings Institution, Hillary Clinton mentioned Russia and Vladimir Putin. She defended her Russia Reset, and then said something strange:

"Russia is a friendly, European country,” said President Vladimir Putin in a 2001 address to the Bundestag in Berlin. Putin told German lawmakers he applauded European integration, believed in the unity of European culture, and was convinced that no one had benefited from Europe’s divisions in the…

Traveling recently in what might be called “new frontline” states—Estonia, Ukraine, and Moldova—I was struck by the depth of concern I encountered about Russian propaganda. And not just propaganda aimed at the Russian population and neighboring countries. At a conference in Tallinn, a Politico…

Earlier this month, the G7 met in Bavaria; its seven members are the major European and North American economies, plus Japan. The G7 is the successor to the G8—Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been suspended, having invaded and annexed parts of Ukraine, and now actively making mischief on NATO’s Baltic…

A Kiev-based Ukrainian friend, after meeting a delegation of young Russians, emails me:  "totally terrible, young Russian diplomats. Manipulation, propaganda, gloating over victory in Eastern Ukraine, this new generation even worse than before. We will have big trouble with Russia for a very long…

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told Bloomberg that the Russian reset was an "invention of Hillary Clinton" and the Obama administration.

It’s an especially tense time for the Baltic states and Russia’s other Western-leaning neighbors. Wariness with regard to Vladimir Putin and long-term Russian intentions toward the “near abroad” has long been the norm here, well before the 2007 cyberattack on Estonia and Russian military action…

Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Vladimir Putin in Sochi, the State Department announced today. They are expected to discuss Iran, Syria, and Ukraine. 

A month and a half has passed since Boris Nemtsov, the Russian political activist who rose to prominence as a dynamic young reformer in the 1990s and later became one of the fiercest critics of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule, was shot dead a few blocks from the Kremlin. The shocking murder,…

If Boris Nemtsov, the Russian statesman and activist killed in Moscow last week, had been a character in a political thriller—and he certainly had the looks and charisma for the part—the script might have been criticized as lacking subtlety. There is the opposition leader gunned down on the eve of…

Ellen Bork, writing at the Foreign Policy Initiative:

On his recent trip to Hungary, Vladimir Putin stirred controversy by visiting the monument erected to the memory of the Soviet soldiers who violently crushed the Hungarian ‘counterrevolution’ of 1956. While his Hungarian hosts remained silent, the symbolic dimension of this act of territorial…

That is how British defense secretary Michael Fallon describes the threat Putin poses to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As Reuters reports, Fallon made these remarks as:

Anton Zverev of Reuters reports that

Munich

The North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, will visit Moscow in May. 

MNSBC's Andrea Mitchell knocked President Obama's description of the world in the State of the Union address as "not close reality":

A year ago, Ukraine’s “Euro-maidan” protests, spurred by then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to reject a promised trade agreement with the European Union and rush into the well-paid embrace of Vladimir Putin, began to escalate in Kiev, turning to violent clashes with government forces. A…

DW reports that:

Charles Lane speculates on just what collapsing oil prices will mean for Russia and Vladimir Putin’s grip on power.  This depends, Lane writes:

Gdansk

At this writing, it seems that the hundreds of trucks sent by Moscow with supplies for the residents of Eastern Ukraine will be delivered without further incident. For over a week, the long convoy wended its way toward the Ukrainian border, carrying with it the prospect for a spike in tensions…

No columnist rivals Matthew Continetti's ability to contrast so starkly the president's exalted self-image with his actual smallness on the world stage. This morning's installment of his weekly Free Beacon column is perhaps the best example yet. While President Obama announces his arrival at coffee…

Kiev

Jeffrey Gedmin, writing for the Huffington Post:

Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev says that "we are slowly but surely approaching a second cold war." He also said that U.S. President Barack Obama could be "more tactful politically" and that he's disappointed in some of the decisions Obama has made.

It's hard to look on the bright side of the dismemberment of a sovereign state by force of arms. But because of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the ongoing threat Vladimir Putin intends to pose to eastern Ukraine, the Obama administration must now face international reality free of one of its…

Vladimir Putin evidently feels a kind of boundless nostalgia for what he remembers as days of glory and pride, with parades and big red flags on the streets of Moscow with the rest of the world looking on in fear.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on why the U.S. needs to push back against Vladimir Putin.

Lolita C. Baldour of the AP reports that:

Vladimir Putin learned lessons from the Balkan wars of the 1990s that the rest of the world ignored or has forgotten. He invokes an obviously false parallel between the NATO bombing of Serbia and liberation of Kosovo in 1999, and his own annexation of Crimea. In his speech of March 18, Putin sought…

The Obama administration has scheduled a deputies committee meeting this week—tentatively set for Tuesday—to resolve a bitter inter-agency dispute over a request from Russia with respect to the Open Skies program. Informed sources believe the White House is likely to side with the State Department,…

The Ukraine crisis may end not with an invasion, but a lien. As Reuters reports:

Travelling from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Mostar, a city almost midway toward Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Coast, one drives through a stunningly-beautiful landscape of mountains, forests, and rivers. On a recent trip, however, I observed a surprising sight: four gas stations…

The failures of American will exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are numerous and mounting. Coming on top of the tepid response to China’s declaration of an air defense identification zone over Japanese waters and the withdrawals from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the “red line” in Syria, they have…

It's time for a reset for U.S. policy toward Russia. The original Obama reset has now run its course, and President Vladimir Putin has thoroughly dashed all hope of Russia emerging as a partner of the United States and a constructive contributor to a liberal international order. The armed takeover…

On February 22, popular protests led to the fall of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev. On February 27, in response to this setback, President Vladimir Putin sent forces into Crimea to seize it from Ukraine. On March 19, President Barack Obama delivered his response. He…

In the present crisis over Ukraine, the capabilities of the Russians are clear enough. As Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes of the Wall Street Journal report:

As Vladimir Putin reminds us that hard power, military power – not “soft” or “smart” power – is the ultima ratio in international affairs, who speaks for the Republican party?

The AP is reporting:

Yesterday, President Obama explained that while “Russia’s actions are a problem,” it’s not really that big a concern. “They don’t pose the No. 1 national security threat to the United States,” said Obama. Russia, the president continued, is a “regional power that is threatening some of its…

Kiev

Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson was a congressman and then senator from Washington state from 1941 until his death in 1983. Jackson was a traditional Democrat: liberal on domestic policy, strongly tied to the labor movement, and a hawk on national security matters. He was very much in the tradition of…

In recent weeks, all eyes have been on a revisionist regime dissatisfied with the post-Cold War status quo, convinced of the geopolitical necessity of and historical right to a hegemonic self-centric regional order, dedicated to the long-term job security of its political leaders, and driven by…

It may come as a surprise to the architects of our “Smart Power” foreign policy, but the world is not entirely rational.  Vladimir Putin defies the West, which threatens sanctions – but nothing personal – and he is not deterred, even at the risk of recession.  Like a lot of strongmen, Putin knows…

It comes as no big surprise that K Street has no plans to impose sanctions on Russia … or itself.

Garry Kasparov, writing for Politico magazine:

On the last day of February and first day of March, Russia’s mendacious foreign and defense ministers told their credulous U.S. counterparts that Russia had every intention of respecting Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Of course, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is virtually the…

On February 23, five days before Russia invaded Ukraine, National Security Adviser Susan Rice appeared on Meet the Press and shrugged off suggestions that Russia was preparing any kind of military intervention: “It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence returned and the situation escalate.” A…

Who’s surprised that the Obama administration, evolved, urbane and forward-looking, is having a hard time dealing with Vladimir Putin’s unreconstructed Cold War mentality in Ukraine? “We’re hoping that Russia will not see this as sort of a continuation of the Cold War," John Kerry said last week. …

The Mobile World Congress (MWC to the cognoscenti) took place in Barcelona during the last week of February.  It was a four-day exhibition of the digital world’s latest and coolest.  Phones, tablets, “wearables.”  All of it very cutting edge.  One of the big winners was the Yota, a dual-screen…

Vladimir Putin is aggressive, increasingly armed, and dangerous. Besides his recent attack against Ukraine, he invaded Georgia in 2008 and has been rearming since well before then.  Like his Communist and czarist predecessors, Putin seeks to expand Moscow’s control.  Russian military spending—for…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on the situation in Ukraine.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on President Obama's influence with foreign leaders and Ted Cruz's role in the GOP.

Mr. Vladimir Putin intends that the current Olympic games be forever stamped with his glory.  Sochi is being protected by a “Ring of Steel.”  Thus has spoken Russia’s current Man of Steel, who sees himself as the rightful descendant of the original, although Mr. Putin’s bared breasts on such…

As the winter holidays approached, the beleaguered Russian opposition had a rare occasion to celebrate: Russia’s three best-known political prisoners were unexpectedly granted their freedom. On December 20, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon whose arrest a decade ago escalated Vladimir…

Russia has become the world's leading practitioner of judo diplomacy. In its simplest terms, the discipline of judo teaches its adherents to use an opponent's movement to unbalance him and throw him to the ground. Unbalanced opponent. Takedown. Victory.

What would Miss Manners say about Russian president Vladimir Putin? No, not about his habit of going shirtless in public. It seems that Putin has developed the habit of showing up late for important meetings, and keeping foreign dignitaries waiting. On a recent visit to South Korea, where proper…

The media have been pretty down on Obama recently. Or rather, the media have been about as critical as they’re ever going to be. Case in point, The Scrapbook was a bit taken aback when we saw last week’s Time cover. Vladimir Putin’s visage is glowering against a stark background, and the cover line…

Americans watch our tragedy-of-errors Syria policy from the safety of houses and apartments in suburbs and cities 5,000 miles from the conflict. Israelis are next door, and two weeks ago​—​when an American strike and possible Syrian counterstrike at Israel seemed imminent​—​they were lining up for…

Forty years ago this fall, the United States shipped more than 20,000 tons of tanks, artillery, weapons, and supplies to Israel to ensure its victory over two of the Soviet Union’s Arab clients, Syria and Egypt. Those airlifts showed the Arabs that despite their numerical superiority, they had no…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on a resurgent Russia's growing appetite for influence in the middle east.

Maybe Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin really did discuss the idea of putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control last week on the sidelines of the G20 conference. Putin sure doesn’t care that Obama’s taking credit for the proposal, or that the administration is posturing like a Mob…

Moscow

The Cold War is now so over that it might as well be grouped with the ancient ice ages, but there is one echo rolling across Europe from East to West: the Russian attempt to dominate the natural gas market on the European continent. As the energy sector accounts for 25 percent of Russia’s economy,…

After retaking Russia’s presidency last year, Vladimir Putin seemed to be headed for master-of-the-universe status. The political stage had been cleared of potential challengers to his power. The protest movement that had risen in December 2011 in response to his planned reelection had dwindled by…

There’s been an Orange Revolution in Ukraine, a Rose Revolution in Georgia, and a Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia that helped launch last year’s Arab Spring. Is democracy sweeping the globe at last? Well—not yet, according to our author, a former editor at Foreign Policy who has been doing some…

A group of protestors gathered this afternoon outside the Russian ambassador’s Washington residence to protest the jailing of the three Russian punk rock musicians from the group Pussy Riot. The musicians—Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29—were sentenced…