September 17, 2009 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – September 17, 2009

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TODAY: US to modify or jettison missile defense plans?  NATO chief to meet with Russian envoy; Lukaschenko sends out mixed messages.  South Ossetia denies book burning; think tank leader says Putin could be heading for Brehznev-style decades in power; Medvedev finds inspiration on blogosphere.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House may abandon the Bush-era missile defense plans which have caused consternation in Russia.  AP sources quoted on the Washington Post suggest a compromise measure, tempered to Russian concerns.  RFE/RL has an entertaining list of the ‘dissidents‘ President Medvedev might like to meet on his upcoming US trip.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Russian envoy to the alliance Dmitry Rogozin will hold an ‘extraordinary’ meeting today.  Bloomberg suggests the impetus behind NATO’s desire for increased cooperation is that of curbing nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran.  The unholy trinity: an op-ed piece by Robert Amsterdam on the Iran-Venezuela-Russia triangle is published today in the Moscow Times.  ‘It looks as though the Kremlin really does want a war between the West and Iran’ Dmitry Sidorov on RFE/RL examines the recent vicissitudes in the Kremlin’s Iran policy.