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The Kremlin delivered a diplomatic blow to U.S.–Russian relations when Moscow granted former NSA analyst Edward Snowden a temporary political asylum. Now, the White House may cancel a U.S.–Russia summit that was scheduled for early September, and Obama’s Russian reset policy will require significant re-examination.
By Ariel Cohen
The Heritage Foundation
August 5, 2013
Ariel Cohen, a Russia scholar at the Heritage Foundation, another Washington policy research organization, called the Snowden decision a “slap in the face to the U.S. and President Obama” and a further sign that “under Putin, the vector of Russian foreign policy is away from the West and away from the United States.”
By Terry Atlas & Nicole Gaouette
Bloomberg
August 2, 2013
CNBC's Eamon Javers reports on what NSA chief Keith Alexander said about the potential of Edward Snowden coming back to the U.S. to face charges; and Ariel Cohen, Heritage Foundation, shares his opinions about Snowden's asylum in Russia.
August 1, 2013
CNBC
"It's pretty bad," says Ariel Cohen, a Russia expert at the Heritage Foundation. "U.S.-Russia relations are at their nadir, rock bottom since the end of the Cold War."
By Oren Dorell
USA TODAY
July 25, 2013
Lithuania is building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at the port of Klaipeda. The project, which is expected to be operational by 2014, will give the Baltic nation access to the world’s LNG market. Today, the nation’s existing natural gas infrastructure consists of a single pipeline owned by the Russian-government-controlled energy giant Gazprom.
By Ariel Cohen and Daniel Kochis
The Heritage Foundation
July 18, 2013
Ariel Cohen, a Russia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said that the threat level posed by Umarov and other terrorists is “very high,” particularly for U.S. and Israeli Olympians.“But it’s a threat level for everybody,” he said, noting that Russian security services are frequently ineffective when it comes to stopping terrorists.“The track record of the Russian services is not stellar,” Cohen said.
By Adam Kredo
The Washington Free Beacon
July 3, 2013
Last Sunday, a Russian consular official confirmed that former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden asked for political asylum in Russia. Snowden’s defection, announced after a week in Moscow, may be not an impulsive act but a thoroughly pre-planned operation.
By Ariel Cohen
July 1, 2013
Recently, Russia launched its largest military maneuvers since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The exercise involved redeploying one hundred and sixty thousand soldiers and officers, along with one hundred and thirty aircraft and helicopters of various types, to the Eastern Military District. Seventy ships from the Russian Pacific Fleet also took part, on the heels of a large-scale naval exercise with the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
By Ariel Cohen
The National Interest
July 25, 2013
In a well-reasoned broadside, The Washington Post’s editorial board blasted President Obama’s Russian policy and his Berlin speech this past Thursday.The editorial justly criticized the naiveté with which Obama reached out to Russian president Vladimir Putin with a badly thought out proposal to cut a third of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, while ignoring Russia’s pointed lack of cooperation on a number of other key issues.
By Ariel Cohen
June 21, 2013
The formation of a Eurasian Union (EAU) is the next in a series of Russian initiatives to reassert control over the former Soviet space. The Eurasian Union of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, if it follows the course that Russia will set, could threaten regional stability and undermine economic and political freedom in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
By Ariel Cohen
June 14, 2013
Testimony in front of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women's Issues/Subcommittee on European Affairs
By Ariel Cohen
June 13, 2013
Russia is planning to supply Syria game-changing weapons which will shift the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean in favor of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and may make any future operations against the Assad forces considerably more difficult.
By Ariel Cohen
May 29, 2013
In a scene reminiscent of the spy thriller TV series “The Americans,” Russian FSB secret police Monday night detained and then released an alleged CIA operative, Ryan Christopher Fogle, who is a Third Secretary at U.S. Embassy Moscow. The Russian government later declared him “Persona Non Grata” (PNG) and expelled him from the country.
By Ariel Cohen
May 15, 2013
This past Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met President Vladimir Putin of Russia in the Kremlin.Kerry was seeking to repair frayed ties with Russia and obtain Moscow’s assistance with a settlement in Syria. The U.S. and its allies hope to put an end to the civil war, and the Obama Administration wants Russia to help.
By Ariel Cohen
May 9, 2013
Dr. Cohen’s speech at the National Security Group lunch at the Center for Security Policy.Center for Security Policy
May 9, 2013
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a scathing new report focused on the crackdown on Russia’s civil society. Since December 2011, the Kremlin has committed to squashing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that promote democracy and are alleged conduits of Western influence, HRW says.
By Ariel Cohen and Benjamin Tigay
May 8, 2013
Boston Marathon bombers have brought greater attention to Russia’s volatile North Caucasus, their ancestral home. As painful their heinous acts are, however, the bombers’ actions are just a footnote to the history of insurgency and connections to global Islamist networks in the North Caucasus.
By Ariel Cohen
April 26, 2013
THE Boston Marathon attack by two young Chechen men demonstrates the global nature and deep historic roots of contemporary Islamist terrorism.It also indicates that major sports competitions, concerts and other events are targets for terrorists and sends the warning to the organisers of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia: “You are next”.
By Ariel Cohen
April 21, 2013
When the Russian Foreign Ministry released its updated Foreign Policy Concept in February, codifying Russia’s global strategies, Washington yawned. Yet this document reveals much about the emerging “Putin Doctrine.” It further separates Russia from Western Europe and is especially critical of the United States.
By Ariel Cohen
April 5, 2013
Russia’s objections to U.S. missile defense development and deployment have been on the agenda of consecutive American Administrations starting with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. For President Obama, it became a high priority as Moscow turned missile defense disagreement into a principal bone of contention.
By Ariel Cohen
April 1, 2013
China’s new president Xi Jinping will make his first official foreign visit later this month. He will visit Russia, in a trip Chinese sources say “will improve relations and cement strategic partnership.”
By Ariel Cohen
March 14, 2013
London mayor Boris Johnson published an op-ed Monday in which he decried the posthumous trial of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky.Johnson called Magnitsky “a martyr trampled by a corrupt system” and called on the United Kingdom and the European Union to pass a Magnitsky Act—which levies financial sanctions and visa restrictions on the Russian officials involved in Magnitsky’s death—of its own.
By Ariel Cohen
March 13, 2013
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives
By Ariel Cohen December 5, 2012
