Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

[North Pole]

Hello, everyone!
I am Russian, I was born and raised in the USSR.

I discoved your forum couple years ago, but couldn't register at that time due to some restrictions with registration. Anyway.... I enjoy reading your forum which I find very informative and friendly.

This is my very first thread here, I hope you'll like the info and enjoy watching the presidential inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev.

Cheers........

North Pole

[North Pole]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

Russia’s President Elect Dmitry Medvedev

Will he step up to glorify his name, or will he stumble? Russia Today gives you a chance to become an eyewitness to the first steps of Dmitry Medvedev as the Russian President - literally. On Wednesday May 7, and only on RT, you can see the Inauguration of Russia’s third President.
It will take place at noon Moscow time in the Kremlin.

RT coverage starts at 11:40am (7:40am GMT).

LIVE - RussiaToday : News : Watch Russia presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!








THE GRAND KREMLIN PALACE

The architectural complex of the Moscow Kremlin includes quite a number of historical monuments built from the 14th to the 20th centuries. Located along the southern line of the Borovitsky Hill is the Grand Kremlin Palace, a stately white-and-yellow building. It was constructed in the 19th century at the initiative of Tsar Nicholas I to replace the ancient palace of Grand Prince Ivan III and the 18th-century Palace of Empress Elizabeth. The new imperial palace was built by a group of architects under the supervision of Konstantin Thon.

“Besides the newly-built imperial palace, the Grand Kremlin Palace includes some of the surviving constructions dating back to the period from the 15th to the 17th centuries that were previously part of the ancient residence of Russian Grand Princes and Tsars,” says Natalya Sidorova, a research staff member of the Moscow Kremlin Museum Complex. “These are the Faceted Chamber erected in the 15th century, the Golden Tsarina’s Chamber built in the 16th century, the 17th-century Terem Palace, the residence of the Tsar and his family, and palace cathedrals and churches.

The construction of the Armory Chamber in 1851 and the adjacent Apartment block completed the architectural complex of the Grand Kremlin Palace.

The inner premises of the former imperial palace number nearly 700 rooms, including five ceremonial halls and the living quarters of the Tsar’s family. The gorgeous and exquisite decoration of their interior combines different styles – from Renaissance to Byzantine-Russian.

The Grand Kremlin Palace is rightfully called a museum of Russian palace interior. Before 1917 the Palace was the official Moscow residence of the Russian Tsars. Nowadays the entire complex of the Grand Kremlin Palace, except for the Armory, houses the residence of the President of the Russian Federation, where President’s inauguration ceremonies, presentations of state awards, and many others are held.”

The largest and most solemn hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace is the Hall of St.George. It is dedicated to the Order of St.George the Victorious, the highest Russian military award instituted in 1769. Rising along the walls are 18 columns crowned with statues illustrating the victories of Russian weaponry. The names of regiments, navy and gun crews, and of outstanding Russian army and navy commanders decorated with the Order of St.George are carved out on the marble plaques built into the walls.

READ MORE - Voice of Russia

[North Pole]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

That's all folks! Putin's farewell to colleagues

Vladimir Putin is the most influential world leader. I hope that he will work just as hard for Russian people as new Russia's Prime Minister.

RT VIDEO - http://russiatoday.ru/news/news/24359/video


YOUTUBE VIDEO - http://youtube.com/watch?v=xWXKEnFIx0s

[North Pole]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

There are now less than two days left before Vladimir Putin steps down after two consecutive terms as Russian President. Monday's meeting with the country's government was supposed to be a routine discussion. However, the outgoing leader decided to make it less official.

At the meeting Vladimir Putin thanked everyone who'd worked with him for the last eight years.



Putin holds last conference with Cabinet as president

05/ 05/ 2008

MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin held his last Cabinet meeting as head of state on Monday, as his eight-year rule entered its final week.

Putin, who has agreed to take up the premier's post on May 8, pledged closer cooperation between the Kremlin and the Russian government after his 'heir,' 42-year-old Dmitry Medvedev, is inaugurated as president on May 7.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080505/106589833.html

October 2, 2007
THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. At a meeting of the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport, Excellence in Sports, Preparation and Organisation of the XXII Winter Olympics and XI Paralympics in 2014 in Sochi




February 18, 2008
MARIINSKY THEATRE, ST PETERSBURG. At the awards ceremony of the Laureus World Sports Academy.


May 18, 2006
BOCHAROV RUCHEI, SOCHI. With activists from the democratic, youth movement 'Nashi'.




April 24, 2008
MOSCOW. At the 85th anniversary celebration of the Central Army Sports Club (CSKA). With tennis player Yelena Dementyeva.

[Armanen]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

Nice to have you here northpole!

[North Pole]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

Thank you, Armanen.
I tried to register under my full nickname - North Pole Resident - but the last word didn't fit. Well..... North Pole is fine too.

[North Pole]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

Last hours of Putin’s Russia

Vladimir Putin has less than a day before he officially hands over the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev. The inauguration ceremony will take place at the Kremlin on Wednesday.

VIDEO - http://russiatoday.ru/news/news/24402/video




On his last working day as president, Putin has presented five Russian cities with honorary awards. Ahead of Victory Day the cities of Polyarny, Luga, Rostov-on-Don, Tuapse and Voronezh were given Military Glory Certificates for their contribution in defeating Nazi Germany in WW2.

A grand strategist or just the man who was in the right place at the right time? Putin has come a long way in his eight years in power.

READ MORE - http://russiatoday.ru/news/news/24402




September 15, 2001

YEREVAN.

President Vladimir Putin visited the Matenadaran depository of mediaeval Armenian manuscripts.
Mr Putin displayed great interest in the written Armenian heritage, collected over many centuries.
Sen Arevshatian, Fellow of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences and Matenadaran Director, told Mr Putin that the Matenadaran was one of the world’s foremost centres in terms of the number of manuscripts in storage and their importance. It presently possesses more than 13,000 manuscripts and book fragments, many of them the world’s only extant copies.
Named after Mesrop Mashtots, founder of the Armenian alphabet, the Matenadaran is not only a museum but also a research institute. Donations from the Armenian Diaspora have steadily enriched its collection.










March 25, 2005
Yerevan. At the opening ceremony of the Year of Russia in Armenia.

March 25, 2005
15:30

Echmiadzin, Armenia.
Vladimir Putin met with Katolikos of all Armenians Garegin II.

The Russian President noted that there are warm relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church. This makes an important contribution to cooperation between peoples.
After the talk, Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Garegin II, examined the Katolikosat, and also the cathedral in Echmiadzin. The Russian President was shown exhibits made of gold, and a collection of paintings, icons, and ancient stone crosses.



March 25, 2005
Echmiadzin, Armenia.




March 25, 2005
Echmiadzin, Armenia. With Katolikos of all Armenian Garegin II.



March 25, 2005
Echmiadzin, Armenia. Meeting with Katolikos of all Armenian Garegin II.



March 25, 2005
Yerevan. At the opening ceremony of the Year of Russia in Armenia.




January 22, 2006
STATE KREMLIN PALACE, MOSCOW. At the opening ceremony of the Year of Armenia in Russia.

Source - http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/events/det...24_85875.shtml

[Armenian]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

My tribute to the great Russian Czar Vladimir Putin. His legacy will endure for ages. Long live our Russo-Armenian alliance.

*******************************

A Tsar Is Born

TIME's Interview with Vladimir Putin (Video): http://www.time.com/time/specials/20...691763,00.html

Time Magazine, By Adi Ignatius

No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's. The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved by the suppression of ordinary needs, like blinking. The affect is now seamless, which makes talking to the Russian President not just exhausting but often chilling. It's a gaze that says, I'm in charge. This may explain why there is so little visible security at Putin's dacha, Novo-Ogarevo, the grand Russian presidential retreat set inside a birch- and fir-forested compound west of Moscow. To get there from the capital requires a 25-minute drive through the soul of modern Russia, past decrepit Soviet-era apartment blocks, the mashed-up French Tudor-villa McMansions of the new oligarchs and a shopping mall that boasts not just the routine spoils of affluence like Prada and Gucci but Lamborghinis and Ferraris too.

When you arrive at the dacha's faux-neoclassical gate, you have to leave your car and hop into one of the Kremlin's vehicles that slowly wind their way through a silent forest of snow-tipped firs. Aides warn you not to stray, lest you tempt the snipers positioned in the shadows around the compound. This is where Putin, 55, works. (He lives with his wife and two twentysomething daughters in another mansion deeper in the woods.) The rooms feel vast, newly redone and mostly empty. As we prepare to enter his spacious but spartan office, out walk some of Russia's most powerful men: Putin's chief of staff, his ideologist, the speaker of parliament—all of them wearing expensive bespoke suits and carrying sleek black briefcases. Putin, who rarely meets with the foreign press, then gives us 3 1⁄2 hours of his time, first in a formal interview in his office and then upstairs over an elaborate dinner of lobster-and-shiitake-mushroom salad, "crab fingers with hot sauce" and impressive vintages of Puligny-Montrachet and a Chilean Cabernet.

Vladimir Putin gives a first impression of contained power: he is compact and moves stiffly but efficiently. He is fit, thanks to years spent honing his black-belt judo skills and, these days, early-morning swims of an hour or more. And while he is diminutive—5 ft. 6 in. (about 1.7 m) seems a reasonable guess—he projects steely confidence and strength. Putin is unmistakably Russian, with chiseled facial features and those penetrating eyes. Charm is not part of his presentation of self—he makes no effort to be ingratiating. One senses that he pays constant obeisance to a determined inner discipline. The successor to the boozy and ultimately tragic Boris Yeltsin, Putin is temperate, sipping his wine only when the protocol of toasts and greetings requires it; mostly he just twirls the Montrachet in his glass. He eats little, though he twitchily picks the crusts off the bread rolls on his plate.

Putin grudgingly reveals a few personal details between intermittent bites of food: He relaxes, he says, by listening to classical composers like Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky. His favorite Beatles song is Yesterday. He has never sent an e-mail in his life. And while he grew up in an officially atheist country, he is a believer and often reads from a Bible that he keeps on his state plane. He is impatient to the point of rudeness with small talk, and he is in complete control of his own message. He is clear about Russia's role in the world. He is passionate in his belief that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, particularly since overnight it stranded 25 million ethnic Russians in "foreign" lands. But he says he has no intention of trying to rebuild the U.S.S.R. or re-establish military or political blocs. And he praises his predecessors Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev for destroying a system that had lost the people's support. "I'm not sure I could have had the guts to do that myself," he tells us. Putin is, above all, a pragmatist, and has cobbled together a system—not unlike China's—that embraces the free market (albeit with a heavy dose of corruption) but relies on a strong state hand to keep order.

Like President George W. Bush, he sees terrorism as one of the most profound threats of the new century, but he is wary of labeling it Islamic. "Radicals," he says, "can be found in any environment." Putin reveals that Russian intelligence recently uncovered a "specific" terrorist threat against both Russia and the U.S. and that he spoke by phone with Bush about it. What gets Putin agitated—and he was frequently agitated during our talk—is his perception that Americans are out to interfere in Russia's affairs. He says he wants Russia and America to be partners but feels the U.S. treats Russia like the uninvited guest at a party. "We want to be a friend of America," he says. "Sometimes we get the impression that America does not need friends" but only "auxiliary subjects to command." Asked if he'd like to correct any American misconceptions about Russia, Putin leans forward and says, "I don't believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe...[Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have...the dirt washed out of their beards and hair." The veins on his forehead seem ready to pop.

Elected Emperor

Putin has said that next spring, at the end of his second term as President, he will assume the nominally lesser role of Prime Minister. In fact, having nominated his loyal former chief of staff (and current Deputy Prime Minister) Dmitri Medvedev to succeed him as President, Putin will surely remain the supreme leader, master of Russia's destiny, which will allow him to complete the job he started. In his eight years as President, he has guided his nation through a remarkable transformation. He has restored stability and a sense of pride among citizens who, after years of Soviet stagnation, rode the heartbreaking roller coaster of raised and dashed expectations when Gorbachev and then Yeltsin were in charge. A basket case in the 1990s, Russia's economy has grown an average of 7% a year for the past five years. The country has paid off a foreign debt that once neared $200 billion. Russia's rich have gotten richer, often obscenely so. But the poor are doing better too: workers' salaries have more than doubled since 2003. True, this is partly a result of oil at $90 a barrel, and oil is a commodity Russia has in large supply. But Putin has deftly managed the windfall and spread the wealth enough so that people feel hopeful.

Russia's revival is changing the course of the modern world. After decades of slumbering underachievement, the Bear is back. Its billionaires now play on the global stage, buying up property, sports franchises, places at élite schools. Moscow exerts international influence not just with arms but also with a new arsenal of weapons: oil, gas, timber. On global issues, it offers alternatives to America's waning influence, helping broker deals in North Korea, the Middle East, Iran. Russia just made its first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran—a sign that Russia is taking the lead on that vexsome issue, particularly after the latest U.S. intelligence report suggested that the Bush Administration has been wrong about Iran's nuclear-weapons development. And Putin is far from done. The premiership is a perch that will allow him to become the longest-serving statesman among the great powers, long after such leaders as Bush and Tony Blair have faded from the scene.

But all this has a dark side. To achieve stability, Putin and his administration have dramatically curtailed freedoms. His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin's hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule. Yet this grand bargain—of freedom for security—appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes' promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy. Putin's popularity ratings are routinely around 70%. "He is emerging as an elected emperor, whom many people compare to Peter the Great," says Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center and a well-connected expert on contemporary Russia.

Putin's global ambitions seem straightforward. He certainly wants a seat at the table on the big international issues. But more important, he wants free rein inside Russia, without foreign interference, to run the political system as he sees fit, to use whatever force he needs to quiet seething outlying republics, to exert influence over Russia's former Soviet neighbors. What he's given up is Yeltsin's calculation that Russia's future requires broad acceptance on the West's terms. That means that on big global issues, says Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution and former point man on Russia policy for the Clinton Administration, "sometimes Russia will be helpful to Western interests, and sometimes it will be the spoiler."

Up from the Ruins

How do Russians see Putin? For generations they have defined their leaders through political jokes. It's partly a coping mechanism, partly a glimpse into the Russian soul. In the oft told anecdotes, Leonid Brezhnev was always the dolt, Gorbachev the bumbling reformer, Yeltsin the drunk. Putin, in current punch lines, is the despot. Here's an example: Stalin's ghost appears to Putin in a dream, and Putin asks for him help running the country. Stalin says, "Round up and shoot all the democrats, and then paint the inside of the Kremlin blue." "Why blue?" Putin asks. "Ha!" says Stalin. "I knew you wouldn't ask me about the first part." Putin himself is sardonic but humorless. In our hours together, he didn't attempt a joke, and he misread several of our attempts at playfulness. As Henry Kissinger, who has met and interacted with Russian leaders since Brezhnev, puts it, "He does not rely on personal charm. It is a combination of aloofness, considerable intelligence, strategic grasp and Russian nationalism" (see Kissinger interview).

To fully understand Putin's accomplishments and his appeal, one has to step back into the tumult of the 1990s. At the end of 1991, just a few months after Yeltsin dramatically stood on a tank outside the parliament in Moscow to denounce—and deflate—a coup attempt by hard-liners, the Soviet Union simply ceased to exist. Yeltsin took the reins in Russia and, amid great hope and pledges of help from around the world, promised to launch an era of democracy and economic freedom. I arrived in Moscow a week later, beginning a three-year stint as a Russia correspondent. I retain three indelible images from that time. The first: the legions of Ivy League—and other Western-educated "experts" who roamed the halls of the Kremlin and the government, offering advice, all ultimately ineffective, on everything from conducting free elections to using "shock therapy" to juice the economy to privatizing state-owned assets. The second: the long lines of impoverished old women standing in the Moscow cold, selling whatever they could scrounge from their homes—a silver candleholder, perhaps, or just a pair of socks. The third, more familiar image: a discouraged and embattled Yeltsin in 1993 calling in Russian-army tanks to shell his own parliament to break a deadlock with the defiant legislature when everything he was trying to do was going wrong.

Yeltsin bombed his way out of the threat of civil war and managed to hang on to power, but Russia was left hobbled. Virtually every significant asset—oil, banks, the media—ended up in the hands of a few "oligarchs" close to the President. Corruption and crime were rampant; the cities became violent. Paychecks weren't issued; pensions were ignored. Russia in 1998 defaulted on its foreign debt. The ruble and the financial markets collapsed, and Yeltsin was a spent force. "The '90s sucked," says Stephen Sestanovich, a Columbia University professor who was the State Department's special adviser for the new Independent States of the former Soviet Union under President Bill Clinton. "Putin managed to play on the resentment that Russians everywere were feeling." Indeed, by the time Putin took over in late 1999, there was nowhere to fall but up.

Path to Power

That Russia needed fixing was acknowledged by all. But how was it that Putin got the call? What was it that lifted him to power, and to the dacha in Novo-Ogarevo? Putin's rise continues to perplex even devoted Kremlin observers. He was born into humble circumstances in St. Petersburg in 1952. His father had fought in World War II and later labored in a train-car factory. Putin's mother, a devout Orthodox Christian, had little education and took on a series of menial jobs. The family lived in a drab fifth-floor walk-up in St. Petersburg; Putin had to step over swarms of rats occupying the entranceway on his way to school. Putin's only ancestor of note was his paternal grandfather, who had served as a cook for both Lenin and Stalin, though there's no sign that this gave his family any special status or connections. Putin describes his younger self as a poor student and a "hooligan." Small for his age, he got roughed by his contemporaries. So he took up sambo—a Soviet-era blend of judo and wrestling—and later just judo. From all accounts, he devoted himself to the martial art, attracted by both its physical demands and its contemplative philosophical core. "It's respect for your elders and opponents," he says in First Person, his question-and-answer memoir published in 2000. "It's not for weaklings."

[...]

Source: http://www.time.com/time/specials/20...690766,00.html

[Armenian]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

A Modernizing Czar

Vladimir Putin can take great satisfaction with the legacy he will leave his successor this spring. In 2007, he achieved the goal he set out for himself eight years ago in a document, "Russia at the Turn of the Millennium," just before he took the presidency from ailing Boris Yeltsin: To rebuild Russia at home so that it could regain its status as a great power abroad. Last year saw this Russia on full view, playing a more vocal, visible and at times troublesome role on issues of great importance to Europe and the United States, such as Iran, the Middle East, missile defense, and energy.

Many may find President Putin's methods unsavory and Russia's new face disturbing. But we should give him his due, for the odds against success were formidable. Consider the Russia he inherited. Under President Yeltsin, Russia suffered a socio-economic and political collapse unprecedented for a major power not defeated in a major war. Between 1990-1998, the economy plunged by 40%. The state was dysfunctional, with significant parts privatized by corrupt oligarchs and with regional barons asserting their independence. Russia was humiliated as its finances were run out of Washington by the International Monetary Fund, and outside powers shamelessly interfered in Russia's domestic affairs in support of Yeltsin. Many Russians thought their country was on the path to becoming a failed state; many Westerners were contemplating a world without Russia.

Eight years later, the difference is stark. Mr. Putin has restored Russian pride and enhanced Russia's power. The economy has not only recovered all the ground it lost in the 1990s, but has also developed a robust service sector that was practically non-existent in the Soviet period. Russia has accumulated the third largest monetary reserves in the world after China and Japan. Mr. Putin has rebuilt an authoritative state along traditional Russian lines, highly centralized and personalized, by taming the oligarchs and regional barons and undermining alternative centers of power such as the Duma and the media. Russia is stable; living standards are soaring. It is once again feared and respected abroad. No wonder Mr. Putin is wildly popular among Russians, who now look to the future with greater optimism and confidence than ever over the past two decades.

To be sure, President Putin has been lucky -- lucky that he succeeded a decrepit Yeltsin, lucky that oil prices rose sharply on his watch, lucky that political disarray in Europe and the United States made him shine all the brighter on the world stage. But other leaders have failed to capitalize on such luck. One need look no further than to Leonid Brezhnev, who squandered a similar opportunity in the 1970's and instead prepared the ground for the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1980's. And there were many opportunities for Mr. Putin to falter. Without remarkable macroeconomic discipline, for example, the flood of petrodollars into Russia could have unleashed a devastating inflationary spiral and not the solid growth we have seen.

The time of restoration has now passed, however, and 2008 brings a new, more formidable challenge -- modernization -- that will require new approaches, particularly with the West. Russia needs to make massive investments -- perhaps a trillion dollars over the next decade -- to modernize infrastructure largely inherited from the Soviet Union and starved of funds over the past 15 years. It needs to diversify its economy away from an overlarge dependence on natural resources, particularly into high-tech, if it wants to remain a major power. It needs to rebuild its public health and education systems to produce a competitive workforce. This is all the more imperative because its population will decline sharply over the next decade because of poor health conditions in the past.

Mr. Putin and his entourage have spoken openly about these challenges. The question is whether they are prepared to take the steps needed to address them effectively. Success is threatened by the traditional Russian blight of corruption. Critical to dealing with that threat is to open up the political system to encourage greater transparency and accountability by government officials. Relaxing the current supercentralization will help foster the flow of reliable information, flexibility and innovation that Russia needs to face the challenges and exploit the opportunities of the 21st century.

Success will also require Russia to repair its relations with the West -- to begin with by ratcheting down the vitriolic anti-Western rhetoric coming out of Moscow today. For Russia cannot modernize itself on its own, even if it must play the leading role. The money, know-how and technology it needs can only be found in the West. And Russia cannot guarantee its security at a time of great global upheaval without friends and allies. Only one country has the capability to work with Russia on the full range of its real security challenges, which do not lie in the West but to the South in the guise of a militant radical Islam, to the East in the guise of a rapidly changing geopolitical environment, and globally in the guise of nuclear proliferation and megaterrorism. That country is the United States.

So one big question for 2008 is whether Mr. Putin and his chosen successor, Dimitry Medvedev, can summon up the wisdom to meet the challenges of economic and political modernization and the courage and confidence to build a cooperative relationship with the West, for the sake of Russia's own future.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1200...googlenews_wsj

[Armenian]

Re: Watch Russia’s presidential inauguration broadcast LIVE!

Why Are We Baiting Putin?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

"[N]o legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply management or attempt to monopolize transportation," thundered Vice President Cheney to the international pro-democracy conference in Vilnius, Lithuania. "[N]o one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor, or interfere with democratic movements." Cheney's remarks were directed straight at the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin, who is to host the G-8 Conference in July. Cheering Cheney on is John McCain, front-runner for the GOP nomination, who has urged President Bush to snub Putin by boycotting the G-8 summit. What the GOP is thus offering the nation right now is seven more years of in-your-face bellicosity in foreign policy.

What does McCain think we would accomplish – other than a new parading of our moral superiority – by so public an insult to Putin and Russia as a Bush boycott of the St. Petersburg summit? Do we not have enough trouble in this world, do we not have enough people hating us and Bush that we have to get into Putin's face and antagonize the largest nation on earth and a co-equal nuclear power? What is the purpose of this confrontation diplomacy? What does it accomplish? Eisenhower and Nixon did not behave like this. Nor did Ford or Bush's father. Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" once. But the Soviet Union we confronted in those years was hostile. Until lately, today's Russia was not. Yet the Bush boys are in their pulpits, admonishing the world's sinners every day. What is their beef with Putin's policy?

In January, Putin decided to stop piping subsidized gas to Kiev and start charging the market price. Reason: Ukraine's president, elected with the assistance of U.S. foundations and quasi-government agencies, said he was reorienting Kiev's foreign policy away from Russia and toward NATO and the United States. If you are headed for NATO, Putin was saying to President Viktor Yushchenko, you can forget the subsidized gas. Now this is political hardball, but it is a game with which America is not altogether unfamiliar. When Castro reoriented his policy toward Moscow, Cuba's sugar allotment was terminated. U.S. diplomats went all over the world persuading nations not to buy from or sell to Cuba. Economic sanctions on Havana endure to today. We supported, over Reagan's veto, sanctions on South Africa. We have used sanctions as a stick and access to the U.S. market as a carrot since we became a nation. What, after all, was "Dollar Diplomacy" all about? Cheney accuses Moscow of employing pipeline diplomacy – i.e., using its oil and gas pipelines to benefit some nations and cut out others. But the United States does the same thing, as it seeks to have the oil and gas of Central Asia transmitted to the West in pipelines that do not transit Iran or Russia. "[N]o one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor," declared Cheney in Vilnius. How the vice president could deliver that line with a straight face escapes me.

Does Cheney not recall our "Captive Nations Resolutions," calling for the liberation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which, though free between the two world wars, had long belonged to the Russian empire? Does he not recall conservative support for the breakup of the Soviet Union? Does he not recall conservative support for the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, and more recently Kosovo, from a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia? What concerns Cheney is Moscow's support for the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. Georgia's president was also elected with the aid of pro-democracy NGOs, mostly funded by Uncle Sam. All these color-coded revolutions in East Europe and Central Asia bear the label, Made in the U.S.A. When Cheney says, "No one can justify actions that … interfere with democratic movements," he is hauling water for Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, and similar agencies, which Putin wants shut down or kicked out of Russia for interfering in her internal affairs.

We Americans consider the Monroe Doctrine – no foreign power is to come into our hemisphere – to be holy writ. Why, then, can we not understand why Russia might react angrily to our interference in her politics or the politics of former Russian republics? The effect of U.S. expansion of NATO deep into Eastern Europe, U.S. interference in the politics of the former Soviet republics, and U.S. siting of military bases in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia has been to unite Russia and China, and undo the diplomacy of several successive U.S. presidents. How has this made us more secure? If we don't want these people in our backyard, what are we doing in theirs? If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire.

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8964