RUSSIA DESK

THE SAKER—The distinguishing characteristic of this new opposition to Putin is that it sees itself as the truly patriotic segment of Russian society. These are folks who blame Putin for being weak, indecisive and corrupt (including personally). They believe that Putin sits on the top of an oligarchic pyramid which only pays lip service to Russian national interests, but which in reality is interested only in wealth, power and influence. Frankly, much of their argumentation about Putin’s alleged corruption is based on a mix of disinformation and personal hatred for Putin himself. In contrast, however, their arguments that Putin is too weak or indecisive are based on a completely rational and fact based analysis of the events which have marked Putin’s presidency.

DANIEL CHALYAN—One shouldn’t be surprised by anything they see here. Red Sparrow is part of a compound assault on the Russian people: modern mainstream news and satire cover the political side of things, while films like this try to dehumanize through attacks on society – often by taking bits of truth and cleverly distorting and exaggerating them in order to foster believability. You can’t make Russia-bashing plausible within the framework of the media alone, because baseless narratives about “Russian actions in Syria” do not generate enough visceral hatred among those that can’t find Syria on a map.

PEPE ESCOBAR—On multiple fronts, what was not disclosed by Ushakov is way more fascinating than what’s now on the record. There’s absolutely no way Russian hypersonic weapons were not also discussed, as well as China’s intermediate-range missiles capable of reaching any US military base encircling or containing China. The real deal was, in fact, not Putin-Pompeo or Pompeo-Lavrov in Sochi. It was actually Lavrov-Wang Yi (the Chinese Foreign Minister), the day before in Moscow.

ANN GARRISON—Cohen and Batchelor readily acknowledge their differences as well —Cohen a liberal progressive, Batchelor a libertarian conservative — but they agree on the dangerous folly of the New Cold War. After a lifetime of scholarship and engagement in Russian history, Cohen says that the current state of U.S.-Russian relations is more perilous than any moments of the First Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. Indeed, one of his concerns is that Trump has been so fraudulently vilified as a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin that he may be politically unable to defuse another precipitous confrontation like the Cuban Missile Crisis.