Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told Bloomberg that the Russian reset was an "invention of Hillary Clinton" and the Obama administration.
Today is the sixth anniversary of Hillary Clinton's reset with Russia. That's when Clinton physically gave her Russian counterpart a "reset" button (though, in fact, she got the translation wrong):
In what might possibly be an attempt to relive the success of Hillary Clinton's "Russian reset," the State Department recently awarded a $22,116 contract for "Red Switch Equipment." Which sounds a lot like the device Clinton famously presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in 2009 to…
In an interview to promote her book on BBC, Hillary Clinton called the Russian so-called reset "a brilliant stroke." The statement came in response to a question about whether she was in retrospect embarrassed about the policy.
New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte called for reseting the "reset" policy with Russia.
Continuing his pattern of intruding upon every major event (or at least the ones he’s aware of), President Obama appeared on Friday night’s broadcast of the Winter Olympics, just before the Opening Ceremonies. When Bob Costas asked, “[D]o you have a message for the United States team?” Obama…
The Scrapbook enjoyed what might charitably be called a warmhearted chuckle at the news that President Obama had abruptly canceled his planned “summit” meeting in Moscow with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Even the reliably turgid language of White House press secretary Jay Carney was unusually…
Polls have closed in Georgia, the small Caucasus Republic that took center stage in the 2008 presidential campaign when Russian troops poured over the border there and threatened to topple the country's pro-American government. With both sides claiming victory, the country of 4.5 million people may…
CBS reports that when Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin met with the press after their long private discussion, "The two men barely looked at each other. You could just feel, sort of, the tension between them. And the body language really represented how far apart the two leaders remain on the issue…
The AP reports:
AFP reports: "Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month rejected an offer from United States (US) President Barack Obama for landmark bilateral talks at the White House, the Kremlin revealed on Tuesday."
President Obama got caught in private conversation with a hot mic today in Seoul, South Korea, telling outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that Vladimir Putin should give him more "space" and that "[a]fter my election I have more flexibility."
The Obama administration has moved to assert America’s Asia policy by vigorously engaging Southeast Asian nations concerned about China’s recent posture. On his trip to the region earlier this month, the president affirmed that the United States is, and will remain, a Pacific power. He made the…
Jamie Kirchick, writing in the Wall Street Journal, examines Russia's ongoing support for Iran:
One of the core strategic beliefs of the Obama administration has been that their Bush predecessors overreacted to the attacks of 9/11 and became obsessively focused on the greater Middle East at the expense of East Asia or the “Asia-Pacific,” where the rise of China and India presages a new…
When Barack Obama campaigned for president in 2008, he promised to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.” The word “unproven,” folks worried, could be used against every defense system that hasn’t intercepted a missile in combat. And, indeed, Obama did cut missile defense programs.
The Associated Press reports that, according to Iranian state TV, the mullahs have "stepped up" nuclear operations "after years of delay."
Following this write up, Joshua Foust seems to have regained an interest in the reports that Russia is responsible for bombing the American embassy in Georgia. You can read it here, but the long and the short of it: Foust remains skeptical of Georgian claims, he remains skeptical of Eli Lake's…
Last week, Eli Lake reported on a very specific allegation by a senior Georgian official that the Russian GRU was behind a series of bombings in that country, including the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi. The charge was so detailed that it even included the name of the Russian officer who…
Eli Lake has a pretty big scoop today on Russian espionage in Georgia: A bomb targeting the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi has been linked, by Georgian intelligence, to a series of bombings around the country over the last 12 months that all lead back to Russia's GRU.
A year ago President Obama treated Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to lunch at Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia. "Obama ate a traditional cheeseburger, while Medvedev added jalepenos, mushrooms and onions to his," the Washington Post reported at the time. "The pair shared an order of…
In a little noticed letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, dated May 9, three House members and four senators wrote, “As strong supporters of the Baltic States in Congress, we were troubled to learn that Russia intends to build a nuclear power plant within 50 kilometers of the Lithuanian…
Earlier today, Republican Rep. Peter Roskam, deputy whip in the House, put out a statement signaling his support for the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act.
Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport had been planning to provide an initial public offering to investors this week, allowing folks from around the world to buy shares in the currently private company that operates the facility. Suddenly, over Memorial Day weekend and in the middle of the night, Domodedovo…
Eli Lake reports in today's Washington Times: