TODAY: Russia warns against US joining monitoring in Georgia; Lavrov unfazed by Biden's comments. US says Russia could still join NATO.  Ambassador to Britain claims no legal basis for British Council activities in Moscow. Moldova election kicks off.  Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has said that Georgia's movements on the frontier with South Ossetia and Abkhazia are 'categorically inflating political and military hysteria'.  A high-ranking diplomat has said that including the US in monitoring missions in Georgia would be 'extremely harmful' and would raise 'the likelihood of border provocations,' as well as endangering the reset.   Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has downplayed Joe Biden's 'Bush-like' comments as 'not normative', saying that US voters who ...

Andrei Piontkovsky has an incendiary column published through Project Syndicate alleging the economic interests of some Russia commentators in the United States.  This one is bound to raise some controversy.

The Kremlin's achievements in securing the help of Americans willing to offer their influence are equally impressive. Indeed, the Obama administration's Russia policy is being nurtured with advice from people who have no official position in the administration, but close business ties to Russia and the Kremlin: Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker, Thomas Graham, and Dimitri Simes. The first two are major geopolitical figures; Graham and Simes are respected as outstanding Russia specialists. They write key reports for the administration, and shuttle between Moscow and Washington, coordinating the parameters of the Obama administration's effort to "reset" the bilateral relationship.

Like Schroeder, all these

...