Analysis: Obama appeals to skeptical Russians
- Source: Sina.com
- [18:40 July 08 2009]
- Comments
On Saturday, anchorman Sergei Brylyov of the state-run Rossiya network noted that US experts were calling on the Kremlin to give up what the West sees as its dreams of a restored empire. "In short, Russia needs to know its place," Brylyov said, acidly.
But once the summit started, state-controlled media has provided relatively upbeat coverage.
While Obama's speech was carried live on government 24-hour cable news channel Vesti, the other state-owned channels stuck with their regular noontime entertainment programming.
Obama's respectful approach seemed to earn the speech positive coverage on regular newscasts.
The most critical of the commentators who regularly appear on television, such as the acerbic Mikhail Leontyev, seem to have been muzzled.
Despite the past several years of scorching rhetoric and Cold War-style gamesmanship, there is still a deep vein of affection and admiration for the US in Russia.
And both the political leadership and ordinary Russians continue to measure their country's achievements against those of the US, another continental nation with tremendous natural wealth and globe-straddling ambitions.
Even as the Kremlin welcomed Obama as a negotiating partner, it seemed to signal that it is not prepared to bend to pressure on human rights issues. A Moscow judge refused a request by lawyers for the former oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky to send his case back to prosecutors for review.
Human rights groups here cite the case of Khodorkovsky, a Putin foe, as a prime example of the government's use of selective prosecution and pliant courts to achieve political ends.
The government has trumpeted the Obama summit as proof that Russia has rejoined the ranks of world powers.
For the White House, the summit was a chance to persuade Moscow to support rather than oppose crucial US initiatives regarding Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.
Washington hoped to prevent US-Russia tensions from erupting into armed conflicts between Moscow and former Soviet states, such as Ukraine and Georgia, which find themselves at odds with the Kremlin.