In the run-up to yesterday's debt ceiling deal between Congress and the White House, there was a lot of frustrated reaction from world leaders fearful of what a U.S. debt crisis could mean for their own economies. But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin might have just won the prize for the strongest response so far.  Today, he told a Russian youth group that the United States was "like a parasite" on the world economy.

They are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy ... They are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar ... Thank god that they had enough common sense and responsibility to make a balanced decision.

Russia holds a large amount of U.S. bonds and treasuries, which means had the United States defaulted, it too would have been in trouble. There was clearly some relief this morning, following the news of yesterday's agreement. Both of Moscow's stock exchanges opened up about two percent -- though, they later declined due to investor doubts about the Washington plan.

In today's speech, Putin said Russia should look for other reserve currencies to hedge against "a systemic malfunction in the U.S. economy," according to the Wall Street Journal.

What options do they have besides the dollar? The Journal reports that last year Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held talks with Chinese leaders exploring the possibility of moving reserve assets into the yuan and away from the dollar.

Russia cut back its purchases of U.S. treasuries in recent months -- down from $176 billion in October, 2010 to $115 billion in May. Still, they are unlikely to completely bail on the U.S. market any time soon since Russian officials concede it is still a safer bet than other world economies.

So, the Kremlin will most certainly be dealing with the U.S. "parasite" for the foreseeable future.

He drives sweet cars. He tranquilizes tigers. He rides horses bare-chested.

Yes, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is a man's man, and it's driving the ladies crazy, if two pro-Putin stunts from the last week are any guide. The first came from Putin's Army, a group of young, female Putin supporters who formed on VKontakte, Russia's version of Facebook. They released a professionally-made video calling on "young, smart, and beautiful" girls to tear off their shirts and back a Putin campaign for the presidency. (After all, how else would you show your support? Elections?) But they may have been one-upped by a similar group called I Really Do Like Putin, who staged a bikini car wash in downtown Moscow. The women gave free car washes for Russian-made cars to show their support for Russia's domestic car industry.

Russia Today presents the footage, followed by an attempt at banter from the anchors that almost upstages the car wash footage:

With elections a year away in Russia, the campaign wing of Putin's establishment are relying on an unorthodox PR strategy to rebrand the party and win more (non-rigged) votes. Posters up now in central Moscow depict President Dmitri Medvedev as an armor-clad superhero, spoofing the new movie Captain America by calling Medvedev "Captain Russia: First Ruler." But it's not clear who's behind the Putin's Army video. Though speculation abounds, Putin has not declared his candidacy for the presidency yet, and Kremlin authorities have strongly denied involvement.

Of course, if women tearing off their shirts doesn't work, there's always Putin's chest. What a stud.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he's troubled by the security lapses that led to yesterday's Moscow airport bombing: 

“What occurred shows that there were violations in providing security,” Mr. Medvedev said in comments released by the Kremlin. “Such a quantity of explosive material that was carried in or brought in — that’s not so easy to do. We must hold responsible those who have ties to the company that makes decisions, the management of the airport.”

Russia's investigative committee has piled on, finding that "the terrorist had no difficulties entering the arrival hall where the blast occurred as there was not an adequate control." An anonymous police source told RIA-Novosti that airport security "turned a blind eye to the presence of unauthorized persons." 

A full investigation of the events should certainly be carried out, including whether there was anyone working on the inside, helping the bombers. But it doesn't sound to me like there was much out of the ordinary in the airport's security arrangements. (Nor do I detect some sort of latent Russian death-wish in the lax security arrangements.)  The arrivals areas at most U.S. airports are unsecured as well. According to the New York Times, there were only "sporadic" metal detector checks at the entrance to the hall, but spot checks don't seem entirely inappropriate for the country's busiest international airport. 

If anything, the attacks reflect how difficult it's become to carry out terrorist attacks on planes, as Chechen militants did from the same airport in 2004. As former DHS official Stephen Baker told the Times, “They’d like to be bombing planes and they can’t, so they’re bombing airports,” he said. And even if authorities were able to turn all three of Moscow's major airports into impenetrable fortresses, Russia's terrorist groups have proven perfectly willing to target subways and passenger trains. 

Every public space and soft target can't be secured and the root cause of the problem seems to be getting underplayed in both Russian official statements and international media coverage: As long as there's an ongoing low-grade insurgency festering in the North Caucasus, militant groups be able to find soft targets. 

The U.S. and China have been vying for West Africa's sizable and largely untapped oil reserves for years, but less well-known has been Russia's growing interest in the region:

The president of LUKoil Overseas, Andrei Kuzyayev, met Ghana's energy minister, Joe Oteng Adjei, for discussions about the expansion of the company in Ghana, including the development of new projects, according to the latest corporate newsletter, Neftyanie Vedomosti. After leaving Ghana, Kuzyayev held talks in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, and LUKoil Overseas senior vice president Dmitry Timoshenko visited Liberia's capital of Monrovia.

Countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia, “which have just come through terrible civil wars … are today, with the interest of foreign investors, quickly resurrecting their shattered economies,” the company's publication said.[…]

The West African continental shelf is an interesting prospect for many international companies, said Valery Nesterov, an oil analyst at Troika Dialog. “I think almost all Russian companies will be looking at the West African shelf — including Rosneft and TNK-BP,” he added.

LUKoil's potential resources in the area currently consist of up to 35 million barrels. The company said in September that it might have more petroleum in West Africa than in West Siberia.

Between the increasing international competition for the region's oil resources, burgeoning nuclear programs, the promise of greater U.S. engagement, the fallout from the Ivory Coast's political crisis, elections in Nigeria, the beginning of Liberia's election cycle, and concerns over drug trafficking and terrorism bubbling just below the surface, this should be an extremely interesting and consequential year for West Africa. Thankfully, for the United States at least, Iran's efforts at engagement in the region appear to have badly faltered in 2009.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin conducted his annual telethon today, taking call-in questions for more than four and a half hours.

Putin managed to make a bit of news during the program, offering praise to Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko ahead of this weekend's election. The relationship between the former allies had grown sour over the last couple of years due to a dispute over energy pricing as well Lukashenko's refusal to recognize the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and his tentative overtures to Europe. Russian state television had begun airing documentaries about state corruption and human rights abuses in Belarus and President Medvedev even played bad cop for once, recording a video message, accusing Lukashenko of "hysterical" anti-Russian rhetoric. 

But Lukashenko traveled to Moscow last week for energy talks and the hatchet has apparently been buried for now: 

"Whatever our relations with the Belarussian leadership -- and there have been sparks from time to time -- (the) ... Belarussian leadership has taken a clear course towards integration with Russia," Putin said.

Putin also promised that Russia could supply 20 to 21 million tons of oil to Belarus next year. While the result of the election is hardly in doubt, a more positive relationship with Russia is certainly in the interest of Lukashenko, who has faced widespread protests after previous polls.

Putin also had some words for his longtime nemesis Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose trial was recently delayed yet again:

Asked whether the imprisonment of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former oil baron, was justified, Mr. Putin gave a caustic answer, quoting a song by the beloved singer Vladimir Vysotsky.

"A thief should sit in jail," he said. He compared Mr. Khodorkovsky's case to that of Bernard L. Madoff, who received a 150-year sentence for the largest Ponzi scheme in Wall Street history.

Putin also suggested that Ukraine join a post-Soviet trade bloc along with Kazakhstan and Belarus, predicted a World Cup-related economic boost, and was once again coy about the fate of the spy who turned in the 10 Russian sleeper agents in the United States:

[Putin said] Russia has abandoned the Soviet-era practice of killing turncoats.

"Russia's special services don't do that," he said during a televised call-in show. "As for the traitors, they will croak all by themselves. Whatever equivalent of 30 pieces of silver they get, it will get stuck in their throats."

The best Putin-being-Putin moment may have been a response to a question about who runs the country when both he and Medvedev are asleep:

"We take turns sleeping," he said.

Pakistan isn't the only country where the media is playing fast and loose with WikiLeaks "scoops," Radio Free Europe's Claire Bigg reports:

According to the magazine "Russky Reporter," for example, the famous walkout by Western diplomats during Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's speech to the United Nations in September 2009 was not spontaneous and had in fact been planned by Washington.

The magazine, citing WikiLeaks documents, claimed in a December 2 article that U.S. officials gave detailed instructions to EU representatives on when to leave the room during Ahmadinejad's speech. The claim, if substantiated, could be deeply embarrassing to the United States.

But unlike other media reporting on the WikiLeaks revelations, "Russky Reporter" provided no documents to back up its allegations. An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database fails to yield relevant U.S. cables, causing some analysts to suggest the magazine might be exploiting WikiLeaks to propagate false information.

It's a good catch, but I have to say that if I were a Russian propagandist, I might aim a little higher. Why not allege that the U.S. plotted the Orange Revolution? Or that Russian opposition leaders are on the U.S. payroll? Or that the proposed missile defense shield in Eastern Europe is indeed targeted at Russia not Iran? The Ahmadinejad walkout was a significant gesture but not exactly a historic turning point. Perhaps they were trying to avoid the Pakistani mistake of making the deception too obvious.

Last week, I had the chance to speak with three of the lawyers representing the imprisoned Russian oil tycoon-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who were visiting Washington for meetings with the administration officials and NGOs. The verdict in Khodorkovsky's latest embezzlement trial -- the proceedings of which have bordered on farcical at times -- is expected on Dec. 15.

I asked Khodorkovsky's lead trial lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant if he was surprised at the harsh assessments of the Russian political landscape contained in the WikiLeaks cables from Moscow:

We were pleased to read in WikiLeaks that everything we've been saying over the years about what's really going on in Russia are reflected in this diplomatic correspondence. Internally, we see there was always an understanding of what's really happening. But of course publicy, to put it mildly, they don't say everything they say internally.

Attorney Maria Logan thought that the contrast between the stark assessments in the cables and the friendly public relationship between the Obama administration and the Kremlin would be difficult to maintain in the post-WikiLeaks world:

The American administration has created a division between the real Russia, which is being reflected in the correspondence that we now see, and this other Russia that they wanted to show the American public when they pursued the reset strategy. It will be very difficult now for the us to explain why they've been doing the reset when Russia's face is not as pretty as it looked. [...]

The administration, internally, was always very helpful from us. We always received very generous time from the State department and the embassy, very generous time considering where they put the issue of Khodorkovsky publicy on the agenda. There was always a difference and I think they're put in a difficult position. It will be interesting to watch.

One of the cables, from December of last year, specifically discusses Khodorkovsky's trial, taking note of the Russia public's apathy about the situation.

There is a widespread understanding that Khodorkovskiy violated the tacit rules of the game: if you keep out of politics, you can line your pockets as much as you desire. Most Russians believe the Khodorkovskiy trial is politically motivated; they simply do not care that it is. Human rights activists in general have an uphill battle in overcoming public apathy and cynicism, but nowhere more so than in the Khodorkovskiy case.

I asked Klyuvgant whether he thinks the Russian public is tuning out the trial:

Our civil society is still very weak. But the civil society as it exists today in Russia is listening to him and understand what he's saying. The level of support for Khodorkovsky in Russia has been increasing. The level of sympathy for Khodorkovsky, as opposed to support, has been increasing even more. Of course it's still below what we would like to to be and what we think he deserves, but  that's general disatisfcation with the political environment in Russia. There is apathy and cynicism among the general public. But having said that, if you're talking about the level of support for Khodorkovsky, it's still higher than the level of support for the political opposition as a whole.

Given the widespread attention received by Khodorkovsky's closing statement in the trial, I asked if Khodorkovsky considered himself an opposition leader: 

He's not comfortable being put in a position at the center of resistance so to speak. He's being forced into becoming what seems to a lot of people to be  a revolutionary, but that's not his nature. If you look at the reforms declared by President Medvedev, the attempt to modernize the country, Khodorkovsky would be essential to that reform. He has so much to offer in that area. There are not so many people with so much potential and it's a crime to keep a person with such potential to build and do something in isolation and unable to contribute.

But however Khodorkovsky sees himself, his trial has certainly become much bigger than one oligarch's struggle against the government. As longtime Khodorkovsky attorney Anton Drel put it: 

In 2003, when Khodorkovsky was arrested, few people supported him. He was just an oligarch. Now he is a litmus test: for President Medvedev as well as for the reset button policy. We'll see if this is an issue for the young people in Russia and an issue for America.

The Khodorkovsky case is not an internal issue of Russia. It is a foreign policy issue, a geopolitics issue.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is known for loving both cute things and adrenaline, so it's no surprise that he has taken to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio like a puppy to a new chew-toy. DiCaprio landed in St. Petersburg earlier this week to attend a tiger-conservation conference, but his journey to Russia was rife with excitement. His first Russia-bound plane was forced to make an emergency landing in New York after an engine failure. His second plane had to stop in Finland for unscheduled refueling because of strong headwinds.

According to the Telegraph, Putin spotted DiCaprio in the audience and deviated from his set speech to praise DiCaprio as a "real man" noting that "a person with less stable nerves could have decided against coming, could have read it as a sign - that it was not worth going."

DiCaprio apparently was also feeling the love, telling Putin about his Russian heritage. (A Russian film producer, noting Leo's uncanny resemblence to Vladimir Lenin, is reportedly looking to cast the Inception star as a re-animated version of the Soviet revolutionary in an upcoming sci-fi film.)

With all this love in the air, the tigers were not left out. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the International Tiger Conservation Forum ended with the approval of the Global Tiger Recovery Program, which aims to double the number of tigers in the wild. DiCaprio personally donated $1 million for tiger conservation (which should also make Malia
Obama happy).

Of course, Putin's feelings about tigers are already well-known.

Russia is one of 13 countries where tigers still exist in the wild, along with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam.

An unnamed Russian official has told Russia's generally reputable Kommersant newspaper that an assassin has been dispatched to dispense some Soviet-style justice against a former SVR colonel identified only as Shcherbakov, who allegedly controlled the ring of sleeper agents arrested in the United States last June and fled Russia just days before they were arrested: 

"You can have no doubt -- a Mercader has already been sent after him."

Ramón Mercader was the KGB-hired Spanish communist who was sent to kill Leon Trotsky with an ice pick in Mexico in 1940. [...]

"The fate of such a person is unenviable. All his life he will drag this with him, living every day in fear of retribution."

So for blowing Russia's inside source on the Montclair Parent-Teacher Association, this guy gets elevated to the level of Leon Trotsky?

It's true that the arrest of "the illegals" can be seen as a sign of the return to KGB-era espionage tactics after a period during which the SVR tried unsuccessfully to distance itself from its past. And the involvement of Russian intelligence has been suspected in a number of other assassinations, notably former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was killed by polonium poisoning in London in 2006. 

But telegraphing an assassination plan in advance is going to make plausible deniability a bit tough if something happens to Shcherbakov in the near future. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was a bit subtler back in July, saying, "The special services live under their own laws, and everyone knows what these laws are" and "Traitors always end badly. As a rule, they end up in the gutter as drunks or drug addicts."

Vladimir Putin's trip to Kiev this week to sign a series of trade deals with an increasingly Russia-friendly Ukrainian government should have been a feel-good moment for the Russian prime minister, but all anyone wants to talk about is the mysterious bruise on the side of his face:

Putin's aides denied anything was wrong, but the leader's appearance caused intense speculation in local media and blogs. Ukrainian television channel TSN said the Kremlin chief had "noticeable swelling" on his face and was "covered in make-up."

Andrei Kolesnikov, a well-known correspondent with Russia's Kommersant newspaper, confirmed the president's unusual aspect. "Could it really be the result of some tough sparring?" he asked, saying the bruise was "thoroughly retouched but nonetheless noticeable to everyone without exception".

The Kremlin is not-very-convincingly blaming jet lag and light falling on his face in an "unfortunate manner." The Ukrainian media is reporting that the normally talkative Putin was "sad and silent" during a meeting with his Ukrainian counterparts and left early, canceling a planned dinner. According to the BBC, the bruise seems to have appeared between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Not waiting before launching into speculation, Ukrainian papers suggest Putin either "had plastic surgery, underwent a complicated dental procedure that left his face puffy or had an unfortunate judo fight." As the Guardian notes, Putin's habit of cuddling with dangerous wildlife can also put one at risk of injury. In any event, Vladimir Vladimirovich himself doesn't seem likely to comment.

Everybody's (or at least the New York Post's) favorite glamorous Russian spy has resurfaced, putting in an appearance at the launch of a Russian soyuz rocket, bound for the International Space Station:

Dressed in a scarlet peacoat, she was spotted in front of the astronauts' hotel in Baikonur before the lift-off as they boarded a bus to go to the launch. She was swiftly led away by a guard after being recognised by journalists....

Since her arrival back in Moscow she has posed in cocktail dresses for a weekly magazine and appeared at a party at a nightclub, but has not given any interviews about her experience.

Russian media reports said she has been working as an advisor for a bank that is involved in the Russian space programme but officials at Russia's space agency Roskosmos were quick to deny it was involved in her visit.

"Roskosmos has nothing to do with Anna Chapman's visit. As far as we know, she came here as a private individual on the invitation of an executive of a commercial bank," a Roskosmos official said.

Looking forward to where Chapman's fame will take her. Of course, this could only happen in Russia. No U.S. spy whose cover was blown would ever run around like some kind of reality-show star trading on their newfound celebrity. Oh wait.  

With the likely withdrawal Saturday of the Palestinians from their ill-advised direct talks with Israel, it looks increasingly like Barack Obama's foreign policy is headed for catastrophic failure.

Nearly across the board, the president's initiatives are going down in flames. Nowhere is this more true than in Pakistan where, Jane Perlez reported Wednesday, the civilian government in which the U.S. has invested billions is perilously close to collapse -- if not facing a military coup.

Now comes word that Pakistan is cutting off NATO's supply lines into Afghanistan in retaliation for U.S. helicopter strikes in Pakistani territory -- strikes made necessary because the Pakistani military can't, or won't, crack down on militants unless they threaten the Pakistani state directly.

As for the war in Afghanistan, it's going very badly.

Further east, the United States seems headed for a disastrous currency war with China, although Beijing's recent diplomatic blunders have sent Asian countries running into Uncle Sam's loving arms.

To the west, Iraq still has yet to form a government after seven months of post-election deadlock, and attacks on the Green Zone are metastasizing in a frightening way.

One rare bright spot is Russia where, despite the complaints of Cold Warriors and human rights campaigners, relations are at their highest point since the Yeltsin era. But much of the good work Obama's team has done could easily unravel, especially if the Senate deep-sixes the new nuke treaty.

As for Iran, it's a mixed bag. Obama has kept Europe on board with tough sanctions, and brought along a few other players. But China is likely to undercut those efforts and relieve the economic pressure, leaving the United States and Israel with few options for stopping Iran's nuclear drive. Meanwhile, the drums of war are beginning to beat in Congress.

Of course, if Obama really wants to make a hash of the world, I can think of no better way than to start launch airstrikes on Iran. But I doubt he's going to do that.

A top-ranking Russian official recently confirmed his nation's intention to go ahead with the sale of some particularly lethal cruise missiles to Syria. Israel, not-so-surprisingly, is not-so-happy. The supersonic Russian Yakhont missiles have a range of 138 miles, according to the BBC, and could target Israeli warships in the Mediterranean.

Syria and Russia signed the missile agreement in 2007, but Russia is yet to deliver the goods.

The Israelis have been working for some time to dissuade the Russians on fulfilling their contract, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoning his Russian counterpart, Vladir Putin, last month to try and convince him to renege on the agreement.

Of course, the Russians are quite notorious for this kind of behavior; back in 2005 they signed a contract for the supply of the S-300 missile defense system to Iran -- a powerful anti-aircraft system which poses serious threats to modern aircraft, including Israel's own air force. December will mark five years of the Russians dragging their feet on the deal, offering conflicting statements on the status of the system throughout the process.

In the meantime, Russia has been reaping the benefits of the situation, purchasing advanced Israeli drones this spring -- their first military purchase from Israel. More recently, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, travelled to Moscow to meet with Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, where he signed a quite promising military cooperation deal.

Lesson for the day? You could be getting those missiles soon Syria -- but don't get your hopes up, the Russians know how to milk you for the ride.

Then again, they may be learning from the best.

The New York office director of UNAIDS, Bertil Lindblad, is worried about the one region of the world where HIV infections are increasing, even as rates in the rest of the world level off. It's not in Africa or Asia, or even Latin America. It's Eastern Europe -- countries like Russia and Ukraine -- where a recent UNICEF report notes that increases in infection rates of as high as 700 percent have been seen since 2006.

"There is an urgent need for the whole Eastern European and Central Asian region to act quickly," Lindblad said this morning. "This is really quite scary given the fact that there is denial, and so much stigma and homophobia [in that region.] This could really create huge problems if HIV continues to spread from smaller groups in the population to wider."

It's HIV/AIDS's silent crisis, one that has been underway for the last decade. The region is home to a quarter of all injection drug users in the world (3.7 million), and this is where the epidemic is believed to have begun. These users are young -- most of them teenagers. But from there, HIV spread to sex workers (the majority of whom are also under 30), and now has fully moved into the everday lives of men and women in the region, married and unmarried. A mark of the epidemics progression -- from specific populations into the majority -- is the new incidence of HIV among women, who account for 40 percent of all new infections (that's up from only 24 percent at the turn of the century.)

The stigma attached to the disease -- and more importantly, to the groups of people percieved to be the majority infected with it -- is the biggest obstacle to doing anything about the disease. "Those living with HIV have been silenced and excluded, and risky behaviours borne of futility and hopelessness have been sanctioned or repressed," the UNICEF report notes. Government officials are said to be resistant to admitting the scale of the problem, and today that country remains a difficult places for AIDS advocacy, says Lindblad, who formerly worked in the UNAIDS office in Moscow.

But where there is challenge such as this, there is also often opportunity. Russia, I would think, should have a very serious interest in addressing this crisis. For starters, because AIDS threatens to exacerbate its larger demographic problem -- that of a fast-shrinking population. But the other point might be even more convincing: The injection drug users are using heroin. And that heroin comes from Afghan poppies. For Russia, tackling the illegal drug market in Afghanistan -- one which fuels the insurgency -- is a serious national security issue.

Of course, good old fashioned peer pressure might help edge them along as well. And when the U.N. General Assembly meets later this month, one of the side conversations, according to Lindblad, will be a discussion on HIV/AIDS "co-hosted by the government of China, the government of Nigeria, and UNAIDS," specifically, the Chinese premier and the Nigerian president (South Africa's President Jacob Zuma was also supposed to come, but had to cancel.) "That could influence other big countries such as Russia, for example, to turn around."