RUSSIA DESK

JEAN PERIER—Even if Ankara chose to purchase Patriot missiles via NATO, upon delivery its armed forces wouldn’t have come into direct control of those systems, as those could only be manned by NATO crews operating on a rotational basis left up to the Pentagon. Turkey has already had this sort of experience with its previous purchases from Washington, and at some point its leadership realized that this arrangement wasn’t ensuring its national security, as it wasn’t designed for this purpose. Essentially, Ankara couldn’t use any of the weapons that it paid for as they could only be used when the Pentagon said so.

NICK BYRNE—Let’s be optimistic and say that, glory to God, you found something you can do in Russia, obtained a work visa (not a big challenge, once you get a letter of invitation from your future employer, but the process takes a few months), flew over here, and have the basics of life and work satisfactorily settled out. Your next challenge, and it’s a difficult and lengthy one, is learning the Russian language and adapting to Russian culture and mentality.

MoA—The upper part of the graphic explains the S-400 system. The lower part says: “The system can eliminate” and then shows the silhouettes and names of U.S. military bomber, fighter and radar planes as well as Tomahawk cruise missiles. The only one missing is the ‘invisible’ F-35 which the S-400 can of course also detect and eliminate.

ERIC WALBERG—Just how ‘democratic’ Russia is, is debatable but US meddling in Russian elections has been clipped. It reached its apogee in 2011, when McFaul encouraged Clinton to speak out in support of the Russian opposition and meet high profile dissidents. “We are supportive of the rights and aspirations of the Russian people to be able to make progress and realize a better future for themselves.” And when McFaul came to Moscow as the US ambassador in 2011, one of his first actions was to invite the leaders of the various Russian opposition groups to the US embassy to meet with him.