November 20, 2009 By James Kimer

Yurgens: A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is no picnic for Russia

Buried down at the bottom of this blog post attacking Obama’s Russia policy (mostly just picking on Joe Biden – it is the National Journal after all), are some interesting quotes from Igor Yurgens – a key advisor to Medvedev and one of those few remaining in the Kremlin who make quite a lot of sense.

“The dichotomy of attitudes towards Russia in the U.S. administration does not make things easy for us,” said Igor Yurgens, an economic policy adviser to Medvedev, at a Nov. 5 lecture in London hosted by the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “It is a problem.” (…)

Putting historical wrongs, real and perceived, to rest is especially important because there are issues where Washington’s and Moscow’s interests converge, none bigger than Afghanistan. (…)