President Joe Biden met as scheduled today with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and there wasn’t much in the way of fireworks. Putin’s tone in his post-meeting press conference had considerably less “smug asshole having a good time” on his face than in his last meetings with an American president, go figure, but the general tone was of cautious optimism.
For Putin’s part, he called the meeting “very constructive” and announced that the two nations had agreed to return ambassadors to posts currently vacant. What he wasn’t willing to entertain, however, was any notion that his quasi-dictatorship needed to improve human rights in his country, stop the crackdown on opposition politicians and activists, or stop murdering enemies of the state outright.
It needs to be mentioned that Nalvany—whose name Putin refused … Read the rest