Putin Pushes His Own Reset Button On American Relations
The troll strikes again.
Oh, Russia. President Vladimir Putin remains the biggest troll in the world. Of course the Kremlin promised retaliation against America after President Barack Obama slammed them with new sanctions for allegedly trying to interfere with our presidential election. The sanctions included expelling 35 diplomats and their families and closing down two Russian compounds.
Putin claimed he would do the same, but backed off and decided to take a road to help renew American-Russian relations.
(Yeah right!)
Instead of expelling the diplomats, Putin “invited the children of U.S. envoys to a New Year celebration for kids held at a concert hall on the grounds of the Kremlin.” He said:
The diplomats who are returning to Russia will spend the New Year’s holidays with their families and friends. We will not create any problems for US diplomats. We will not expel anyone. We will not prevent their families and children from using their traditional leisure sites during the New Year’s holidays. Moreover, I invite all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas children’s parties in the Kremlin.
It is regrettable that the Obama Administration is ending its term in this manner. Nevertheless, I offer my New Year greetings to President Obama and his family.
Some reports stated that the Kremlin wanted to close the Anglo-American School in Moscow for those children, but the foreign ministry denied they had any plans to do such a thing. Putin continued:
As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind. Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.
LOL. The whole world knows too many people fear a cozy relationship between Putin and President-elect Donald Trump. Putin also knows that many people also think he wanted Trump as president and did everything in his power to get Trump elected. Boy, is Putin trolling those people HARD:
“Putin is looking beyond Obama, and has sought to counter Obama’s sanctions in a way that would not hurt chances of better relations under Trump,” said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Both Obama and Putin are trying to shape future U.S.-Russia relations: each in his own way. Trump finds himself in an interesting situation. He is being tested simultaneously both by his predecessor and a foreign leader. The result will be telling.”
Because this is totally the mature thing to do right before we start a new administration.
Either way, I find it incredibly interesting since Putin does not have a nice bone in his body. But we all know that Putin craves the limelight and will do anything to stay in it. What a better way than to troll America? Anyone with a brain cell knows Putin’s heart has not changed.
We also know that Putin loves to appear as a strong man. These actions make Obama and America look weak. He has effectively brushed off these sanctions as no big deal and laugh in the face of the outgoing administration. In other words, Obama is not worth his time.
Plus, there is a long history of Russian harassment towards our envoys in Russia:
The Kremlin’s effort also contrasts sharply with Russia’s previous treatment of U.S. diplomats in Russia. The State Department earlier this year expelled two Russian officials, citing Russian mistreatment of U.S. diplomats.
U.S. diplomats have long complained of harassment and intrusive surveillance in Russia. Earlier this year, Russian national television broadcast footage appearing to show a Russian police officer tackling a U.S. official outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow; the Russian foreign ministry claimed he was a spy.
Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, was a frequent target of state television camera crews who stalked the diplomat and cast him in an unflattering light.
(h/t to Michelle Ray for the title)
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Comments
So, no one really believes the 35 Russians expelled were “recently” discovered….. our spies routinely watch their “known spies”…. makes you wonder why the Feds were willing to let Obama sacrifice their pawns?
In cases like this, it’s normally a “Round up the usual suspects” time. Remember, espionage and counter-espionage involves a lot of “We know Bob is a spy so we watch Bob and see who he meets with and then we watch them to see who *they* meet with and where the threads begin to cross, we bump the cross-ees higher on the list for background checking and investigation.” Without that first ‘seed’ tracking the rest of the roots is a lot more difficult.
So 35 people we know were spying for Russia go away and 35 more people who we don’t know get slipped in, and the FBI/CIA have to start at Square Zero again. Thanks, O.
I’m not taken by the supposed “harassment” activities complained of by our brave diplomats: I suppose they need access to safe places.
Putin:
1. Goad Obama into taking childish, stompy-foot actions.
2. Decline to retaliate, in dismissive manner.
3. Appear to be the adult to Obama’s child.
4. Return Hillary’s reset button.
5. Announce that Russia will wait until after Jan 20, 2017 before conducting any new business with the USA.
Putin’s actions don’t “make Obama look weak.” Obama’s actions make Obama and America look weak because Obama’s actions ARE weak. He is doing this in the last days of his presidency without offering even the tiniest shred of proof that the “Russians” hacked the election. At best – and I find even that doubtful – the Russians scammed John Podesta into revealing his log-in info. That is phishing, not hacking.
The only proven evidence of hacking comes from the State of Georgia, where more than a half dozen attempts were made to breach their servers from an outside source. The source? The United States Department of Homeland Security.
Apparently the last 8 years have taught this particular author nothing. Putin may not be “trustworthy” but the Obama Regime has proven themselves not only untrustworthy but actively destructive to both the USA and the world.
Sorry, I don’t get this at all. Trying to paint Putin as some sort of mustachioed Snidely Whiplash is just such a weird—even Democratic—idea.
Putin has a job—trying to run internal and external affairs in a way which is beneficial to his Rodina. He’s doing that … and only that; he owes the United States nothing.
Obama’s the troll here. He’s throwing hand grenades left and right. Putin’s just batting them back, like any decent ball player.
Putin looks like an adult, Obama looks like a monkey banging on typewriter keys and claiming he’s composing sonnets.
Fortunately, nothing of consequence will happen. For a really good international disaster—think 1914—you need cooperation between several parties; Bosnian assassins and the Habsburgs, the Romanovs, and the Second Reich. Obama surrounded by more adult personalities can’t trigger such a catastrophe no matter how much petulance he throws. He could start a war with Iran … but he doesn’t want to; even he must realize that despite his best efforts Iran isn’t ready for an atomic war just yet.
It appears that Obama has lost interest in the typewriter and has started flinging poo.
why would Putin want Trump elected, when he already owned Shrillary, having bribed her to approve the uranium deal?
there’s no way the FSB didn’t get all the evidence of the quid pro quo on that exchange, for future reference. that’s just the way they roll.
The down arrow is too close to the reply sign. Putin knows hillary is a snake, she would consider the mine a completed sale and just demand more grease to the wheels.
Who cares now. This Russia “hacked the elections” story is getting old and quite frankly I am bored with this. There is nothing new to add to all of this fake news.
(copy/pasted from Patterico) It would not shock me in the least to find out that the Russian foreign minister had been *told* by Vlad to push for return sanctions just so Putin could play “Good Cop” and state the opposite.
Leaving thousands of clueless liberals in the US all happy about Putin, and how good a guy the (censored) tyrant is.
Putin is a cold war guy with a thousand daggers up his sleeve. His loyalty to Mother Russia is not in question, and his actions support the furtherance of his loyalty. Does that mean that he cannot find common ground with the US that furthers both our interest? If so, does that mean that he’s now trustworthy? Nah.
I think that Putin saw Hillary, an old and corrupt woman, as an unworthy adversary. I think he sees Trump, a big and bold man, as much better. No shame in occasionally taking a hit from a big man. Even Obama, young and healthy, but effete and foppish, failed to register on the “challenge” scale. Thus the serial contempt.
Russia needs money. I think Putin saw a better opportunity to team up on economic agreements with Trump than Clinton. Look for US/Russia oil deals in Europe and the Middle East once Exxon-er SoS Tillerson gets situated.
I finally just read the FBI-DHS report – please go read it, its ridiculous how little information is actually there. Literally 50% of it is restating basic computer security tips like “don’t click on attachments” and “don’t enter your password on sites you don’t know”. Maybe a quarter is devoted to explaining how phishing works. Take away the list of hacking groups and the cover page, and you’re left with maybe a couple of paragraphs about this specific hack at most.
And according to the report, the hackers sent emails to employees of many organizations, so to say this was a targeted attack ignores that there were hundreds of targets, but the DNC just turned out to be among the weakest in terms of cybersecurity. I mean they were so bad they were hacked multiple times via by the same method over a period of at least a year.
And if you’re looking for any information that the Russians did this, you’ll find it in one sentence only: “public attribution of these activities to RIS is supported by technical indicators from the US Intelligence community, DHS, FBI, the private sector, and other entities”. That’s it. That’s all the evidence you get that “Russia hacked the election”.
Anyway, never thought I’d see a situation where Russia seems more credible and trustworthy than America, but here we are.
Phishers are not hackers. Phishing is an attempt to breach a single individual’s or organizations’ accounts. Hacking goes after the back end of the server – everybody’s accounts, all at once.
The two incidents at Yahoo over the last few years, when data belonging to millions of individuals was released is hacking.
John Podesta foolishly getting scammed in a phishing expedition isn’t hacking. It is stupidity about basic computer security.
It really doesn’t matter, No matter how crappy their server security and how unsophisticated about computer security their users are, it is the DNC and the various individuals whose emails were released who are responsible for the contents, not Russia.
Another way to differentiate between phishing and hacking – phishing is a con job requiring the victim’s participation, while hacking is an invasive attack. Phishing is to 3 card monty as hacking is to burglary.
I think its a combination phish + hack. Even if someone gets Podesta’s password, they still have some hacking to do be able to get access to everyone else’s email, files, etc. When Target (the retailer) was hacked they did the same thing – the bad guys phished an HVAC vendor with very limited access, and then were able to hack their way into the servers they needed in order to install the software that ended up stealing 40m+ credit cards.
Putin is so much better at this than Obama. But of course, Obama makes himself a perfect target because he’s a small, weak and petty man of no great intelligence. Everything is about HIM, not the country. Putin knows this and uses it to his advantage.
One additional (as if there aren’t enough odd) points about the ‘hacking’ is that the intelligence agencies aren’t supposed to give their final report until next week but Obama decided to act before he had the “full picture”. In the past, such behavior would have been called “cowboy diplomacy” or such but with a “… like a god” President, it is measured … or something.