Obama and Putin Likely to Have Informal Talks as Russia Advances on Ukraine

President Barack Obama are
likely to have informal talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin as
tensions continue to rise over the war in Ukraine.

Both the leaders are scheduled to be at the Asia-Pacific (APEC)
summit in Beijing and the G20 summit in Brisbane next week.
Although an “official bilateral meeting between Obama and Putin
[is] not anticipated,” a senior U.S. official
tells Reuters, “there [is] a good chance they would find time
to talk informally at the APEC gathering.” The two will also likely
talk about Syria and the ISIS insurgency.

The State Department this week
blasted Russia for supporting “sham” elections that put
pro-Kremlin puppets in power in the war-torn eastern regions of
Ukraine. “Should Moscow continue to ignore the commitments that it
made [honoring Ukraine’s electoral law] and continues its
destabilizing and dangerous actions, the costs to Russia will
rise,” the department stated.

The U.S. and its European Union allies have been trying to
de-escalate Russian aggression through both targeted and broad
economic sanctions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel today
suggested more robust sanctions to punish Putin. Russia’s
economy is suffering,
due in large part to Putin’s own poor handling, and the
nation’s currency is at record lows.

The war, which has already taken the lives of about 4,000 people
and displaced countless others, shows signs of getting worse.
Russia continues to violate ceasefire and political agreements made
last month, called the Minsk Protocols. “Recently we are seeing
Russian troops moving closer to the border with Ukraine. … Russian
special forces [are] inside eastern parts of Ukraine,”
says Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO. The U.S. is
the largest supplier of troops and funding for NATO.

Russian-American relations look like they’ve hit their lowest
point since before the Soviet Union crumbled. Reason
recently highlighted the fact that American diplomats are being
harassed, White House computers have been hacked, and Russia is
flying provocative,
nuclear-capable flights over Europe. Also, a Moscow art gallery
just opened featuring a caricature of
Putin spanking Obama.