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The key to tackling North Korea is Vladimir Putin
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 19/05/2017
» The idea of a grand bargain between the United States and Russia is less popular in Washington than ever before. And yet one of the biggest foreign policy problems for the US -- that of North Korea -- cannot be resolved without Russia's participation. In recent years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made sure to rebuild a close relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and it's no longer enough to talk to China to mitigate the Stalinist state's aggressiveness.
Pope's historic meeting ends up benefitting Putin
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 15/02/2016
» Russia's state-owned media covered the first-ever meeting between Pope Francis and Kirill, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, as a historic event. The official news agency, Tass, even ran a real-time blow-by-blow account. The meeting's value wasn't in any ecclesiastical breakthrough: The Pope, probably inadvertently, played a part in a Kremlin propaganda gambit.