Russia isn’t even pretending to be our friend anymore. After suffering the embarrassment of having an enormous spy syndicate captured on American soil last summer, one would think that the Russian government may attempt to play it safe and appease America for a little while. I mean, having 12 spies unmasked is grounds for some serious tension, yet America seemed to let the news slide (except for the New York Post that is, which made a particularly huge deal of the incident of the beautiful red-headed spy apprehended in Manhattan).
President Medvedev had visited the White House a mere 72 hours before the suspects were apprehended and it seemed as though the Obama administration was attempting to maintain the US’s fragile relations with its former Cold War enemy. The President’s spokesman Robert Gibbs was quoted as saying, “I do not believe that this will affect the reset of our relationship with Russia.” And by reset he meant the shallow attempts of both nations to pretend that they like one another.
The spy story died out after the initial media headlines and a prisoner exchange of 10 of the Russian spies (the other two had been deported) for 4 American ones took place two weeks after the initial arrests. And with that, an extremely embarrassing episode for the Russian government should have came to a close.
Flash-forward to today and the bumbling Russian spy ring know as the 2010 “Illegals” is making international headlines again. In a stunning show of patriotic pride (and direct anti-Americanism), the Russian government (or Putinia as I like to think of it) has decided to honor the captured spies. In a press release sent directly from the Kremlin it was disclosed that “[a] ceremony took place in the Kremlin today to hand top state honours to a number of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) employees, including the spies who were working in the United States and returned to Russia in July.”
The logical reaction to this is what? What happened to that “reset” thing that everyone was talking about back in June? It would appear as though Putin isn’t quite as keen as Washington and his puppet President Medvedev on maintaining the illusion of cordiality between the two nations. In fact, Putin bragged to the media earlier in the year about singing “patriotic songs” with the spies. To say that the Prime Minister is approaching this tense subject with lightheartedness is a gross understatement; he seems to not even care if he ticks off the United States.
It has been almost twenty years since the end of the Cold War and it appears as though a lot less has changed between the US and Russia than most people thought. Sure we trade and our leaders shake hands at big conferences and important diplomatic events, but the old stresses appears to still be intact. Russia is Putin’s playground and the former KGB officer appears to be announcing that he is no longer going to pretend to be America’s big Eastern European friend.
Despite the fact that Putin has grown increasingly vocal in his criticism of the United States over the last ten years, Monday’s announcement remains an enormous surprise. Honoring the spies is nothing short of a direct shot at the Obama administration, and it will be interesting to see how America reacts. This small incident is not going to destroy US relations with the Kremlin, but it may go a long way in pushing American interests out of Russia. Putin has drawn his line in the sand, its America’s choice to see how many more stunts like this it is going to take before we are forced to cross it.
Photo credit: Wikimedia
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