Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
While the world continues to decipher, or digest, the new Trump presidency, important changes are afoot within the grand strategic triangle that lies between Russia, Iran and China
Ahead of Angela Merkel's first official meeting with the new administration at the White House next week, Reuters reports that President Trump will ask the German Chancellor for her views on how the United States can help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine when they meet next week, senior Trump administration officials said on Friday. Trump will reportedly also ask for Merkel's advice on how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, advice which is pretty clear to anyone following the establishment German press over the past few years.
As had been periodically leaked over the past several weeks, overnight both Poliico and the WSJ confirm that President Trump has offered former Utah governor Jon Huntsman the job of U.S. ambassador to Russia and is in the process of submitting paperwork to accept the position; Huntsman is said to have accepted the offer. This is the latest sign of backtracking from plans for Washington-Moscow conciliation, a development which will make future reports based on "anonymous sources" that Trump is a Kremlin puppet even more problematic.
Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, Carter Page and Jeff Sessions, they all have something in common: they all met the Russian ambassador in the US, Sergey Kislyak, the object of non-stop leaks via the NYT/WaPo block, and substantial headaches for the Trump administration. Who is Sergey? The following profile of the Russian career diplomat courtesy of The Hill, should help answer some of lingering questions.
Sergey Kislyak
Via Ted Galen Carpenter of The Strategic Culture Foundation,