Free Republic

Americans need to ask themselves whether we have had it coming. For consider how we have dealt with Russia's interests and sensitivities. Listening to U.S. advisers on how to privatize the wealth of the Soviet state, Russians saw their national assets looted by thieves, hustlers and ``oligarchs'' welcomed in the West, as their per capita income sank and their social security vanished. They saw the United States bomb into submission a Serb nation Russia had always seen as her Balkan god-child, for Serbia's crime of trying to hold on to her cradle province, Kosovo. They saw U.S. agents, under cover...

Why Russia loves Putin Snip That is among the reasons Putin's approval rating in Russia is twice that of Bush in America and four times that of the veep. On the eastern shore of Delaware, where college girls from Eastern Europe come to work in the summer, Putin is a rock star among the Russians. Why is Putin popular in Russia? snip Americans give these reasons for the estrangement: Putin's reversion to authoritarianism, his support for repressive regimes in Belarus and Uzbekistan, his closeness to Beijing (including joint military exercises), his sale of fighter jets to Hugo Chavez and anti-aircraft...