Reset

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?

Eli Lake reports in today's Washington Times: 

Russia waged a covert war against Georgia that included missile attacks, arms shipments to anti-government rebels and car bombings since 2004, a newly disclosed U.S. Embassy cable says.

Here is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday making the case for Senate ratification of the new START agreement with Moscow:

Oops. Someone in the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, has pushed the wrong reset button, sending us back to the spy wars of the 1950s. The two FBI complaints made public yesterday, available here, contain the details of what might be the most bizarre espionage case in all of Russian/Soviet history:

Over at Heritage, Ariel Cohen and Helle Dale dive into anti-Americanism in Russia. Apparently it's reaching Cold War levels, with no shortage of government encouragement.

On the Russian domestic front, the United States as "the enemy" is used as a scapegoat for unsuccessful policies and to lend legitimacy to Putin's leadership. For example, the Kremlin has blamed the current economic crisis, which has hit Russia harder than many other countries, on perfidious American policies. Likewise, in foreign policy, anti-Americanism is used to unite countries against the common enemy and to promote a multipolar world vision in which Russia, China, India, and authoritarian states, such as Iran and Venezuela, would check U.S. influence.

Here's a headline that begs for a "reset" joke:

Moscow claims missile shield is aimed at Russia.

Russia's top general said on Tuesday that U.S. missile defense plans were directed against his country, and differences over the issue were holding up an arms treaty with Washington, Russian news agencies reported.

One of the big payoffs from the much touted (yet deeply underwhelming) "reset" of relations with Moscow was sustainment of the northern distribution network, a logistical lifeline to Afghanistan which cuts a hot path through several former Soviet republics. This was to be step one in a larger warming trend with Russia, successfully clearing the air between Moscow and Washington after the Georgian War of 2008.