Dmitry Medvedev

President Obama's explanation today of his private request yesterday, captured on an open microphone, of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for some "space" and "flexibility" until after November's election, simply compounds the problem.

Today, President Obama played down his hot mic moment with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that set-off a firestorm yesterday.

If one needed a reminder of why President Obama must be defeated in November, he provided it today in Seoul, where the end of his private conversation with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev was picked up by microphones as reporters were let into the room:

President Obama got caught in private conversation with a hot mic today in Seoul, South Korea, telling outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that Vladimir Putin should give him more "space" and that "[a]fter my election I have more flexibility."

Last week, a senior Russian official met two Republican senators and came away warning that the GOP would drive Washington’s relations with Moscow into the ground if they came back to power.

Eli Lake has a pretty big scoop today on Russian espionage in Georgia: A bomb targeting the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi has been linked, by Georgian intelligence, to a series of bombings around the country over the last 12 months that all lead back to Russia's GRU.

A year ago President Obama treated Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to lunch at Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia.

This week, “Russia denied registration of a key opposition political party Wednesday, effectively barring it from upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections that the Kremlin had hinted might be open to some competition,” the Wall Street Journal reports. According to opposition leader Boris Nemtsov “"his is an announcement that there will be no elections, because there will be no opposition parties…The decision comes from the very top.”

Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport had been planning to provide an initial public offering to investors this week, allowing folks from around the world to buy shares in the currently private company that operates the facility. Suddenly, over Memorial Day weekend and in the middle of the night, Domodedovo sent out a statement saying that it had canceled its plans and pulled the IPO. Why, and why so suddenly?

Conservative foreign policy wonks are worried that the Democratic majority in the Senate might try to squeeze through the new START agreement before the influx of new Republican senators come to work in January. But Don Stewart, spokesman for Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell, thinks that the Democrats probably will not be able to get new START through during the lame duck session, and almost certainly not before Senator-elect Mark Kirk is sworn, which will happen probably around Thanksgiving.

Last week, the Kremlin announced that Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree banning delivery of its advanced S-300 air defense system to Iran.

The Foreign Policy Initiative has organized a group letter to President Obama on Russia and human rights, focusing on the recent arrest of Russian activist Boris Nemtsov.