Barack Obama

world found their actions barbaric.

But it has little to do with the US as much as Russia's century old inferiority complex where they have always been characterized and felt like the disrespected cousins in Europe.

It isn't America's position but the shared position of all the rest of Western Civilization.

What this delegation does do, in real terms, is give standing and reinforcement to the reform voices that already exist in Russia, ammunition that they both need and know how to use.

There is, of course, no comparison between Putin who has helped foster a campaign of terror against Russian journalists who report against him or gangster capitalists: