Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new American-Russian Cold War. This installment begins with Cohen’s commentary on Russian President Putin’s remarkable statements, in a recent interview, that post-Soviet Russia was itself, not the West, responsible for the misery into which the country fell in the 1990s (a tacit but harsh criticism of his own patron, then President Boris Yeltsin). More importantly, Putin blames the Yeltsin government for not resisting the beginning of US encroachment on Russia’s security in the 1990s through the eastward expansion of NATO, resulting in today’s new Cold War. Cohen points out this is typical of Putin’s candor and wonders if Washington’s Russia “experts,” who are always being “surprised” by the Russian leader, actually read what he says and writes. The discussion turns then to the growing crisis of the European Union, including worsening conflicts among its member states—among them disputes over the flood of refugees, the new right-wing government in Poland, a forthcoming referendum in the Netherlands that could block Ukraine’s planned association with the EU, events in Ukraine itself, and relations with Russia. Cohen ends by pointing out America’s escalating opposition to Secretary of State John Kerry’s photo-détente with Putin, as evidenced by op-ed articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times, and by statements of top-rank generals that Russia is an ever growing military threat to the West, not a worthy partner in the Syrian war. Meanwhile, at the political epicenter of the new Cold War, Russia is suffering from Western sanctions and the collapse of world energy prices, but Ukraine is in ruins.
