[A Channel One article from yesterday’s spy-gate scandal containing details of how the FSB presented the capture of alleged American spy Ryan Fogle. –Ed.] Another spy scandal, this time against the background of a period characterized by less than perfect relations between Russia and the United States. An American diplomat arrested in Moscow while trying to recruit […]
Foreign Policy
FSB Publicizes Telephone Transcripts of Detained CIA Agent
[The strange case of Ryan Fogle, a US diplomat arrested by the FSB on charges of espionage, continues to preoccupy the Russian media. Below is state-controlled Channel One, relying on FSB sources, quoting from alleged telephone conversations Fogle had with a Russian intelligence officer he was trying to recruit. –Ed] The American ambassador visited the […]
Why Syria Brought David Cameron to Sochi
On Friday May 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin received British Prime Minister David Cameron in Sochi, and later thanked him for a very candid conversation. Almost all of this candor was related to Syria. Meanwhile, David Cameron did not send any message to US President Barack Obama, although many experts had spoken of this on […]
Oh, You Silly Man
The photographs showing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry smiling and slapping palms with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are being circulated by many Syrians opposed to the Bashar al-Assad’s regime as visual obituaries of their cause. Weren’t these men supposed to be on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict? And why does the Herman Munster-ish Lavrov […]
In Moscow, U.S. Secretary Kerry Gets a Conference Instead of Sanctions
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived on 7 May for his first visit to Moscow. The Russian capital met him with tanks — a dress rehearsal was under way that day for the parade to take place on Red Square on Victory Day (May 9). Whether Kerry was intimidated by Russia’s military force or […]
Cyprus, Russia – and Syria
Just as I was getting used to thinking of Cyprus as the Mediterranean clime where Hezbollah agents go to spy on ‘the Jews’ and Rami Makhlouf is granted citizenship, I awaken to the fact that future of the eurozone may in fact depend on the good graces of Vladimir Putin. An island nation with a […]