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The column made its way into the newspaper with the help of leading American public relations firm Ketchum, which has offices across the globe and represents some of the world's most prominent brands, as well as the Russian Federation. The firm was responsible for getting Putin's editorial placed in the Times. According to Justice Department filings, Ketchum was paid $1.9 million by the Russian government during the first six months of this year. It got another $3.7 million for public relations work for Gazprom, the oil and gas company controlled by the Kremlin

(Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain will submit an opinion piece to the Russian newspaper Pravda in response to an op-ed on Syria in The New York Times by Russian President Vladimir Putin that infuriated many members of Congress, a spokesman said on Friday. "Senator McCain is glad to take them up on the offer and will submit a piece," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the senior Republican senator, one of the leading congressional voices on international affairs. The announcement came a day after the venerable U.S. newspaper published a Putin commentary in which the Russian leader painted himself...

(Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain will submit an opinion piece to the Russian newspaper Pravda in response to an op-ed on Syria in The New York Times by Russian President Vladimir Putin that infuriated many members of Congress, a spokesman said on Friday. "Senator McCain is glad to take them up on the offer and will submit a piece," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the senior Republican senator, one of the leading congressional voices on international affairs. The announcement came a day after the venerable U.S. newspaper published a Putin commentary in which the Russian leader painted himself...

Dear President Putin: First of all, thanks for “speaking directly to the American people” in your New York Times op-ed. I’d grown used to reading various communists in those pages, but to get a note from an actual Russian president is something special. You may be noticing that it’s not going over so well. I thought I could explain. The short answer is many of us feel we are on to you. We know we can’t trust Assad, and don’t get us started on trusting our own president. But you may be overplaying this so ham-handedly that some clarity may...

On the eve of an all-important pow-wow in Geneva, where Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart will talk over a plan for stripping Syria of chemical weapons, The New York Times published a stern, and at times standoffish op-ed from their brand new contributor: Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Putin is now fully invested in Syria’s CW (chemical weapons) disarmament,” a senior White House official told CNN's Jake Tapper, when asked to respond to Putin’s op-ed. In that opinion piece, Putin speaks directly to the American people and says, among many things, that there is "every reason to...

Via the Free Beacon and the Corner. No surprise that two of O’s few Syria allies in Congress would be outraged on his behalf by Putin’s latest humiliation, but honestly, I’ve been against striking Syria all along and I was irritated by the op-ed too. Makes me wonder how many doves on the Hill are starting to chafe at the obvious enjoyment the Kremlin and its client are taking in embarrassing the White House, notwithstanding the fact that our president spent a full year moronically bumbling his way into this mess. You may hate having Ryan Leaf at quarterback, but...

Apparently, once again with respect to Syria, the White House was caught off guard by events they are frantically reacting to instead of shaping. Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper, a White House official publicly responded to Russian President Vladmir Putin's New York Times op-ed with the admission that Putin "now owns" and has "fully asserted ownership" of America's current foreign policy focal point; pushing Syria to surrender its chemical weapons: “That’s all irrelevant,” the White House official said in response [to Putin's op-ed]. “He put this proposal forward and he’s now invested in it. That’s good. That’s the best possible...

Menendez: Putin op-ed made me want 'to vomit' By Rebecca Shabad - 09/12/13 10:04 AM ET The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said a New York Times op-ed on Syria penned by Russian President Vladimir Putin made him want "to vomit" — echoing a sentiment being widely expressed Thursday on Capitol Hill. In the op-ed, published Wednesday night, Putin again warned the U.S. not to launch military strikes on Syria. He maintained that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was not responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in which more than 1,400 people died, according to U.S....

Link only. http://www.usatoday.com/story/onpolitics/2013/09/12/mccain-putin-syria-op-ed/2803905/

Moscow/Washington, September 12, Interfax - Russian President Vladimir Putin considers dangerous U.S. President Barack Obama's conviction that the U.S. nation is exceptional in some way. "I carefully studied [Obama's] address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States' policy is 'what makes America different. It's what makes us exceptional'. It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation," Putin said in an article published in the Wednesday issue of The New York Times. "There are big countries and small...

MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies. Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again. The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and...