Russia is not going to give up easily on Syria. They've had a relationship with that country since 1955. It's very close to them.
Russia and Iran are not going to allow the Assad regime to fall.
There's absolutely no reason for NATO to be sticking its fingers up the nostrils of Russia at every orifice. I mean, it's absurd. It's absolutely absurd.
This is the Republican Party who has run against Russia for 80 years and you know, (Trump) hasn't mentioned (Putin) except in a positive way.
I think that there is a bipartisan consensus that's incorrect that we should have the whole world be in NATO. For example, if we had Ukraine and Georgia in NATO - and this is something McCain and the other neocons have advocated for - we would be at war now because Russia has invaded both of them.
My goodness, what we want in a leader is someone with judgment, not someone who is so reckless as to stand on the stage and say, "Yes, I'm jumping up and down; I'm going to shoot down Russian planes." Russia already flies in that airspace. It may not be something we're in love with the fact that they're there, but they were invited by Iraq and by Syria to fly in that airspace.
I've thought for some time that the answer to a lot of problems in the Middle East, including Iran, include an active role with Russia. And I think, in some ways, we've taken show votes in the U.N. that are guaranteed to failure before we take them.
The more we can have peaceful trade both with Russia, with China, and with others, you know, there's a self interest in this for everyone.
I think if Russia is really an honest signatory to the chemical weapons ban, if Syria wants to be, ultimately someone has to be responsible for killing civilians. And that's the hard part out of this.
The one way, possibly, out of this is for [Bashar] Assad to abdicate and plead, perhaps to Russia or somewhere else. Would save another wave of civilian casualties if we could get him to abdicate.
So if we announce we're going to have a no-fly zone, and others have said this. Hillary Clinton is also for it. It is a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe for World War III. We need to confront Russia from a position of strength, but we don't need to confront Russia from a point of recklessness that would lead to war.
Russian government attacked our election.
[Dan Fried ]is a pillar of the U.S. State Department. He`s part of its institutional memory. He has been in the room for basically every important negotiation, every standoff, every big development, particularly between the United States and Russia for decades.
The primary agency responsible for rallying U.S.-led interests around the world appears to be having the air sucked out of it. If you are Russia and you are looking at that right now, do you love what you are seeing?
The day after the Republican convention ended, there was another political bomb that was dropped on the U.S. presidential election [2016] from Russia. The day after the Republican convention ended, right before the Democratic Convention began we got what U.S. intelligence agencies believed to be the next big Russian incursion into our election. We got the first WikiLeaks dump.
After [Donald] Trump and his campaign manager both initially denied having anything to do with the platform change, a Trump campaign official now admits that the campaign pushed to soften the Russian language in the platform. It says it was done specifically at Trump`s request.
Russia and [Vladimir] Putin`s antipathy toward Hillary Clinton from her time as secretary of state, Russia`s antipathy and loathing and fear of the U.S. State Department in general, those two - those things that we know about Russia they put a worrying cast over how successfully the new administration here has hollowed out and emptied out the U.S. State Department in just the few weeks since then been in charge.
October 7th [2016], indeed, WikiLeaks released its whole new dump. A whole new bunch of e-mails and documents, this time from [Hillary] Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, e-mails that U.S. intelligence say were hacked by Russia. Apparently, again, they were waiting for the best possible timing on the release.
[Dan fried] is the department`s foremost Russia expert and he, too, is now leaving at a time when arguably the State Department needs it most, the State Department will not have the benefit of his insight going forward.
Given how we know Russia feels about the State Department, seeing what`s happening to the State Department under this current [Donald Trump] administration is worrying and raises all sorts of questions about the connections between this current administration and Russia.
The new [Donald Trump] administration may not want the benefit of [Dan Fried] expertise in terms of figuring out what Russia is up to with us right now but I do. I mean, we can all benefit from it as a country as we figure out what`s going on right now with this presidency and with Russia in particular.
I`m not sure, but [Russia] might be happy to see this guy [Dan Fried] exiting stage left.
When I arrive at our training ground at Borussia Dortmund, everybody could hear just that a few seconds before I can actually be seen. Everybody knows it's me. I love to hear the machine working.
Manchester United have risen to the pinnacle of the English game at a time when the rewards are so high - thanks to the ticket to the Champions League - that they have resources that only a handful of other sides, through merit or the exploitation of the people of Russia, can approach.
I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World.
