Putin, Obama, and Hillary Clinton: The Descent of Russian-American Relations (2009–2012)
This article covers Russian-American relations during the presidency of Barack Obama, the Color Revolutions, and Putin’s fury at Hillary Clinton following mass protests in Moscow. It is the thirteenth entry in the series “Putin’s Russia, Global Corruption, and the Road to the 2016 American Election.” While it is not necessary to read earlier entries, it is recommended.
The first article provides a brief history of Russia’s intelligence services and a definition of “Disinformation” and “Active Measures.”
The second article describes Vladimir Putin’s early life and his experiences as a KGB Officer in Russia and East Germany.
The third article describes how elements of the KGB laundered billions of dollars of Communist Party money into the West as the USSR collapsed.
The fourth article describes the rise of the post-Soviet oligarchic system and the role Eurasian organized crime played in facilitating it.
The fifth article covers Putin’s tenure as Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg and his enduring relationship with organized crime.
The sixth article covers the organized crime and intelligence service links to the Bank of New York money laundering scandal.
The seventh article covers Vladimir Putin’s rise to the Russian Presidency and the mysterious and controversial September 1999 Moscow Apartment Bombings.
The eighth article covers the mysterious series of political assassinations and terrorist attacks that convulsed Putin’s early reign.
The ninth article covers how Putin consolidated the “vertical of power” at home through taming the oligarchs and controlling televised media.
The tenth article covers how Putin seized control over Russia’s strategic resources and uses them to pursue his interests abroad.
The eleventh article covers how Putin and the Kremlin use the spread of corruption abroad to further their strategic interests.
The twelfth article covers Putin’s relationship with the American Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush and the failure of American diplomacy.
This article is an excerpt from my book, While We Slept: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of American Democracy, available here.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
After a historic campaign, a 47-year-old Democratic Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, was elected as the first African-American President of the United States.
The incoming Obama Administration’s overall Russia strategy in his first term came to be known as “the Reset.”
The chief intellectual architect of the Reset was the Stanford Academic, Russia specialist and democracy activist Michael McFaul. In his new role as senior director for Russian affairs at the White House, McFaul initiated a policy review and began drafting policy papers.
Though aware of Putin’s authoritarian tendencies, McFaul supported a policy of “principled engagement.”
Though the relationship had been damaged by a recent Russian invasion of Georgia, Russian forces had stopped short of occupying the whole country. At the same time, issues such as replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and securing new supply lines into Afghanistan to reduce dependence on Pakistan were important American objectives that required Moscow’s cooperation.
The official in charge of introducing the Reset policy to Russia was the new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton had been widely considered a shoe-in to become the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee and the odds on favorite to be elected the next President of the United States. However, after a hard fought primary, she lost in a stunning upset to Obama, whose campaign had painted her as an out-of-touch bastion of the political establishment.
Despite their past rivalry, Obama asked Clinton to serve as his Secretary of State. Though polarizing at home, Clinton regularly topped polls as the world’s most respected woman. As Secretary of State, she was the most famous diplomat on the planet.
During her husband’s presidency, Hillary took on a more proactive role than any other First Lady in American history. Her decision to do so was not welcomed in all corners, and began what would become one of the longest and most controversial tenures for a woman in American public life.
She accompanied Bill on his first visit to Russia in January of 1994. At the time, Washington was aflame with calls to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bill Clinton’s conduct.
Joined by her daughter Chelsea, Hillary touched down in Moscow after a turbulent descent. Feeling queasy, she vomited on the floor of the limo as they made their way into Russia’s capital city.
After sprucing herself up at Spaso House, the American Ambassador’s residence in Moscow, Hillary left to meet with Boris Yeltsin’s wife Naina.
While Bill and Boris discussed nuclear disarmament and NATO expansion, Hillary and Naina visited a local hospital where Hillary described the healthcare plan they were fighting to get passed through the US Congress to curious Russian physicians. Hillarycare, as it came to be known, never passed into law.
That evening Hillary was seated next to Boris Yeltsin at a lavish state dinner held in the Hall of Facets at St. Vladimir Hall. Yeltsin, “kept a running commentary about the food and wine,” Hillary recalled, “informing me in all seriousness that red wine protected Russian sailors on nuclear-powered submarines from the ill effects of strontium 90.”
The Clinton’s formed a friendship with the Yeltsin’s, visiting one another on numerous occasions in Moscow and Washington.
After a four year Independent Counsel investigation, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted in the Senate.
The turn of the Millenium represented a year of great change for both families. Bill, having served two terms as President, returned to civilian life. Hillary successfully ran for Senate in New York, in a move many interpreted as a stepping-stone to the Presidency. Yeltsin stepped down as Russian President on New Years eve.
Hillary’s relationship with his successor was decidedly less friendly.
During her time as Senator from New York, Clinton wasn’t afraid to condemn the Putin regime. In 2005, following the assassination of the American journalist Paul Klebnikov in Moscow, she delivered blistering comments about the murder in the Senate and urged the Bush White House to bring the case up directly with Putin.
During the primary contest against Barack Obama, Clinton brought up Putin as a way to highlight Obama’s lack of experience.
“We’re running for the hardest job in the world,” Clinton said in a TV interview. “You’re not going to get any breaks from Putin.”
After two terms in office, the Russian constitution required Putin to step down from the presidency. However, as he had no intention of relinquishing power, he simply swapped places with his Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who had been his subordinate in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office, and remained the de facto ruler of Russia.
During a 2008 Democratic primary debate in Cleveland, Ohio, the moderator asked the candidates for their thoughts on Medvedev.
“I can tell you that he’s a hand-picked successor, that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence, the best we know” Hillary answered. “So this is a clever but transparent way for Putin to hold on to power.”
While as candidates Clinton and Obama voiced skepticism about Medvedev, in government they opted to give him a chance. Medvedev seemed to be making the right noises about reform, but how long a leash Putin would ultimately provide him was a matter of debate in the White House.
On March 6th, 2009, Secretary Clinton travelled to Geneva to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, known for his formidable diplomatic skills, fine tastes in whiskey and poetry and occasional difficulty in getting along with female counterparts.
Clinton and her team wanted to offer Lavrov a gift that symbolized the reset. En route to Geneva, they landed on the idea of a red button on a yellow base with a label that read “reset” in Russian. McFaul was asked how to spell “reset” in Russian. Unaware of the planned gift to Lavrov, he offered his best guess, peregruzka.
A minor flap ensued when Clinton presented the “reset button” to Lavrov at a press conference. After inspecting the gift, Lavrov informed the gathering that the American’s had made an error, and that the button was labelled overload rather than reset.
The gaffe proved prophetic.
Obama’s first face to face meeting with Putin took place at the latters Novo Ogaryovo dacha on July 7th, 2009. Obama was a popular but untested newcomer to the world stage, while Putin had held the reins of power in Russia, even now as Prime Minister, for nearly a decade.
Whereas Putin nursed grievances dating back to his days in the KGB and the fall of the USSR, Obama had spent his early years reconciling his identity as a mixed-race black man in America and seemed preternaturally comfortable in his own skin.
Where Putin could be taciturn, aggressive and sarcastic, “No Drama” Obama was calm, polite and cerebral.
Obama had enjoyed a fruitful and workmen-like first visit with Medvedev that April in London. Medvedev appeared eager to form a positive relationship with the new American President, but was still tough when it came to defending Russian interests.
On three key foreign policy issues facing the Obama White House, the New START nuclear treaty, accommodating supply lines to Afghanistan and increasing pressure on the Iranian regime over their nuclear program, the Americans walked away cautiously optimistic that they had a partner who might work with them on the reset.
The question remained, would Putin?
Putin and Obama’s first meeting was scheduled to last for an hour. Obama opened the meeting by expressing optimism for Russian-American relations. Following the advice of Russia hand Bill Burns, Obama asked for Putin’s candid views on what had gone right and what had gone wrong between their two countries.
Putin launched into a 50-minute uninterrupted diatribe “filled with grievances, raw asides, and acerbic commentary.”
While Putin claimed he liked George W. Bush personally, he “loathed his administration.”
Putin told Obama that after the support he had lent to the United States following the September 11th attacks, including arranging for military supply routes to Afghanistan, he had been disrespected and snubbed.
Putin further decried the American military debacle in Iraq and said, in no uncertain terms, that the Bush administration had orchestrated the Color Revolutions, which he deemed a direct threat to Russian security. Putin punctuated each aggrieved story he told to the new American President with exact names, dates and places.
As the meeting’s scheduled end approached and Putin’s lecture continued unabated, Burns and McFaul worried that Obama might not get a word in edgewise. Their worries were misplaced.
The meeting extended two hours past its scheduled end time, during which Obama delivered a calm but firm message on his proposed reset. Obama argued that it was in neither country’s interest to allow their differences to prevent the countries from working together in areas of mutual benefit.
Obama further emphasized that he represented a break from the Bush administration, and reminded Putin that he had been against the Iraq War.
As the meeting ended, McFaul believed that Putin had made a considerable impression on Obama. Obama realized that it would be a challenge to maintain contact with Putin and yet still show respect to Medvedev, who technically as President was in charge of Russian foreign policy.
His first meeting with Putin left no doubt in Obama’s mind, Putin was still in charge of Russia. It was a bigger problem then yet realized, Obama wouldn’t meet with Putin again until after his re-election in 2012.
Throughout Obama’s entire presidency, he never had an official summit with Putin in either Moscow or Washington.
Hillary arrived for her first trip to Moscow as Secretary of State in October and held a reception at Spaso House in which she invited Russian journalists, lawyers and civil society leaders.
Though she privately promised that American diplomats would bring up human rights abuses with their Russian counterparts, there were media reports that the Obama administration was going to take a more hard-nosed approach and reduce criticism on these matters coming out of Washington.
Clinton sought to dispel these rumors during an interview on the independent radio station Ekho Moskvy.
“I have no doubt in my mind that democracy is in Russia’s best interests,” she said in response to a question regarding human rights. “[R]especting human rights, an independent judiciary, a free media are in the interests of building a strong, stable political system that provides a platform for broadly shared prosperity. We will continue to say that and we will continue to support those who also stand for those values.”
Hillary’s first face-to-face with Putin as Secretary of State took place at his dacha outside of Moscow on March 19th, 2010.
The meeting started off inauspiciously, Putin kept Clinton waiting in front of a large ceramic mantelpiece, standing awkwardly in front of an increasingly anxious international press clutch.
When Putin finally arrived, he launched into a lecture regarding American sanctions in Iran. After Hillary responded by forcefully defending the American position, Putin promptly dismissed the press from the room.
After a contentious back and forth in private about trade and the World Trade Organization, Clinton decided to change the subject and brought up an issue she knew was close to Putin’s heart.
“Prime Minister Putin,” Hillary interjected, “tell me about what you are doing to save tigers in Siberia.”
Putin, surprised but pleased by the question, led Hillary to his private office.
“He launched into an animated discourse in English on the fate of the tigers in the east, polar bears in the north, and other endangered species,” Clinton later wrote. “It was fascinating to see the change in his engagement and bearing. He asked me if my husband wanted to go with him in a few weeks to tag polar bears on Franz Josef Land. I told him I’d ask, and that if he couldn’t go, I’d check my schedule. Putin raised an eyebrow in response.”
The Arab Spring, Protests in Russia, and Putin’s Rage at Hillary Clinton
On December 17th, 2010, a twenty-six year old named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the corruption that stifled his home country of Tunisia and much of the Arab world.
Bouazizi’s dramatic act launched the Arab Spring, a series of national protest movements and insurrections that shook the political foundations of the Middle East to its core and had profound implications for Russian-American relations.
In 2011, the American-supported Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak was toppled by mass popular protests. In a controversial move that buoyed democratic activists and horrified American allies in the region, Obama came out in support of the protestors and called for Mubarak to step down.
The events in Egypt inspired similar protests in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi, the dictator who had ruled over Libya for nearly four decades, had no intention of leaving peacefully. Gaddafi was poised to violently crush the rebellion and threatened to send his security forces “house by house” in Benghazi, the center of anti-regime activity.
The Obama administration feared a massacre. After intense internal debate and pressure from US allies France and Britain, Obama agreed to support the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent a humanitarian disaster. However, he would only do so with a mandate from the UN Security Council. That meant he needed Russia, if not to support, to at least abstain from the vote.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden met with Medvedev in Moscow and pushed him to support a no-fly zone over Libya. Surprisingly, despite opposition from the Russian foreign ministry and other security officials, Medvedev didn’t dismiss the idea outright.
Whereas many others in the Russian establishment saw the NATO exercise as just another exercise in American military hegemony, Medvedev seemed to find the humanitarian case for intervention persuasive. On March 17th, the Security Council passed United Nations Resolution 1973, which authorized the use of military force to prevent a massacre in Libya.
Putin was apoplectic and criticized Medvedev publicly. Weeks earlier he had warned that chaos and instability would lead to a rise in violent Islamic extremism.
At his next meeting with Obama, Medvedev, under pressure at home with an election looming, expressed his displeasure with the Libyan adventure. At that time, it was unclear to American officials if Putin was planning to run for president again. Medvedev denounced the Americans for claiming to start the war to protect civilians but in actuality pursuing regime change.
Ben Rhodes, a White House advisor present at the meeting, believed Medvedev was doing so to look tough in front of Russian hardliners. With the possible return of Putin on his mind, Obama told Medvedev that the reset had to be strong enough to outlast their personal relationship.
In September 2011, delegates from United Russia gathered in a party congress. The election was 10-weeks away and it was still unclear who would be running for president. Putin and Medvedev strode out to the stage together. After a few tantalizing but noncommittal comments, Putin left the floor to Medvedev.
“It is a pleasure to speak here,” Medvedev began. “I think it’s right that the party congress support the candidacy of the current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, in the role of the country’s president.”
The congress erupted in applause. Putin was returning to the presidency.
A month later, a NATO airstrike hit a convoy carrying Gaddafi as he fled the rebels. In the aftermath, a wounded and dazed Gaddafi hid in a drainage pipe but was found and dragged out by an angry mob. After being brutalized and tortured, Gaddafi was executed.
Putin was horrified by Gaddafi’s gruesome fate.
“Almost all of Gaddafi’s family has been killed, his corpse was shown on all global television channels, it was impossible to watch without disgust,” Putin told the media. “The man was all covered in blood, still alive and he was being finished off.”
To Putin, Gaddafi’s death epitomized the logical conclusion of the Western policies of humanitarian interventionism and regime change: provoke mass unrest, dress up a naked power grab with hypocritical rhetoric about democracy and human rights, and the moment a country’s leader exhibits the slightest sign of weakness, swoop in with military force.
Haunted by the images of Gaddafi’s violent end, Putin more than ever before viewed Western backed protests as not only a force of destabilization in the world, but as a threat to his regime.
Despite these fears, Putin failed to recognize the tide of discontent within Russia poised to surface upon the announcement of his return to the Presidency. The oil boom that had coincided with his first two terms had by 2011 ended and with it the explosive growth rate of the Russian economy that took place over the period of 2000–2007.
Further, young Russians and the urban intelligentsia, many of whom had come of age in Putin’s Russia, found themselves dismayed by the idea of having to live under potentially two additional terms of his rule.
Another factor Putin failed to take into account was the explosive growth of the internet and social media in Russia. By 2011 over 53 million Russians were online and the internet was still relatively free when compared to the largely state run television stations.
Digital platforms such as LiveJournal, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and VKontakte (a Russian version of Facebook) became online meeting grounds for thousands of mostly young anti-Putin Russians who became known as “internet hamsters.”
Dripping with mockery and disdain, online savvy youth used the internet as an outlet for years of pent up frustration.
In an early sign of trouble, Putin attended a mixed-martial arts match in Moscow and was booed by the audience. Though state television edited out the booing, the internet savvy opposition figure Alexei Navalny quickly distributed the raw footage online.
Putin’s political party United Russia had slid even further in the public’s esteem. With parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in December, this posed a serious problem.
As the Arab Spring continued to rage, Putin watched as authoritarian leaders were either overthrown or besieged all around him. Determined not to become a victim of the popular discontent sweeping the globe, Putin left nothing to chance.
In the days before the election, Putin launched a blistering pre-emptive attack against Golos, a Russian non-profit civil election monitor and the only election watchdog independent of the Russian Government.
“Representatives of some states are organizing meetings with those who receive money from them, the so-called grant recipients, briefing them on how to ‘work’ in order to influence the course of the election campaign in our country,” Putin said in a televised speech, referencing the fact that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) covered the operating costs of Golos headquarters.
Golos also received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy and training from the National Democratic Institute. The EU, Sweden, Norway and Britain also offered financial support to the non-profit. To Putin, this was nothing short of foreign interference in Russian elections and akin to a betrayal.
On December 4th, 2011, United Russia won the parliamentary elections with 49.32% of the vote, giving it control over the Duma.
That day 14 Russian independent media and civil society non-profits websites were temporarily shut down by widespread distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Organizations targeted included the radio station Ecko Moskvy, the independent newspaper Kommersant and Golos.
Golos switched over to using a blog on the website LiveJournal, and after LiveJournal came under attack it switched to using Google Docs to update fraudulent election activities in real time.
Despite the attacks, Golos and Western election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) documented thousands of irregularities, including widespread ballot stuffing and a lack of transparency.
What set this election apart from those that came before was the prominent role played by the internet and online video services. Golos released an online map of reported irregularities that quickly went viral. Thousands of Russians uploaded amateur videos of fraudulent acts taking place at polling locations and protestors soon began organizing online.
“Russian voters deserve a full investigation of all credible reports of electoral fraud and manipulation,” Hillary Clinton said in a public statement at a conference in Bonn, Germany, the day after the election.
“The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted. And that means they deserve free, fair, transparent elections and leaders who are accountable to them.”
By that evening, thousands of protestors had gathered outside Chistye Prudy metro station in Moscow chanting “Russia without Putin,” and “Putin is a thief!”
The Kremlin flooded the streets with riot police and troops, leading to some 300 hundred arrests of protestors, but it wasn’t enough to squelch the growing popular discontent.
Similar to what was occuring in the Arab Spring, protestors were using the internet to communicate and plan gatherings. Soon, online calls were being made to organize nationwide protests on December 10th.
It was Putin’s nightmare, one he had inherited from Andropov and witnessed firsthand in Dresden with the collapse of the GDR. He was swift to blame Hillary Clinton.
“The first thing that the secretary of state did was say that [the elections] were not honest and not fair, but she had not even yet received the material from the observers,” Putin said at a meeting with political allies in which he announced the formation of his presidential campaign.
32,000 people had already signed up for a scheduled protest outside the Kremlin on Facebook. Putin further claimed that hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign money had been spent to influence the Russian election. However, his attacks never strayed too far from Clinton.
“She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal,” Putin continued. “They heard the signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began active work.”
Putin’s use of the term “active work,” also translated as “active measures,” refers to the KGB practice of political warfare, suggesting Putin believed that the protests were in fact the product of a Western intelligence operation.
On December 9th, the day after Putin’s inflammatory comments regarding Clinton, Obama met with Michael McFaul in the Oval Office. McFaul had at one point early in his career worked for the National Democratic Institute in Moscow.
Obama questioned McFaul about America’s democracy promotion efforts in Russia and in response McFaul explained that he had promoted increasing funding to Golos and had also cleared Clinton’s statements in Germany. Obama supported McFaul’s actions, but instructed him to diffuse tensions over the election.
The next day, despite warnings from Russia’s chief public health official Gennady Onishchenko that protestors risked SARS infection, tens of thousands of protestors flooded the streets of Moscow in the largest demonstration since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Chants of “Putin is a thief,” and “Russia without Putin” again filled the air. The chaos of the Arab Spring looked as though it had reached Moscow.
Despite the protests, Putin went on to win the election and was poised to begin his 3rd official term as Russia’s president. Before returning to his role as prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev signed a law extending the Presidential term from four years to six, thus almost ensuring 12 more years of Putin’s rule.
Putin’s return to power was marred by a 20,000-strong protest and the violent police reaction that rocked Bolotnaya Square in Moscow the day before his inauguration.
Unmistakable evidence, in Putin’s eyes, of American meddling in Russian internal affairs at his expense, for which Hillary Clinton was the chief culprit.
Officials in the U.S. government, including Obama, debated whether Putin truly believed the accusations he was making that the United States was involved in a covert effort to overthrow his government.
Initially, Michael McFaul thought that it was just a cynical ploy to mobilize domestic political support. After he became the American Ambassador to Russia in 2012, however, McFaul came to believe that Putin did in fact believe this to be the case, and that he had formed his views of American foreign policy during his time in the KGB. This was for driven home during a meeting in which Putin angrily blamed McFaul, who had been labelled a revolutionary instigator by Russian state media, for the decline in relations.
Hillary Clinton’s final meeting with Putin as Secretary of State took place in September 2012 at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vladivostok. During a ceremonial dinner, Clinton was seated next to Putin. Over the course of the meal, Clinton shared that she had recently visited a memorial in St. Petersburg for the victims of the Nazi siege. The comment prompted a story from Putin that left a deep impression on Clinton.
Putin said that during the war his father had returned from the front lines for a brief respite when he saw a pile of bodies in the street outside of his apartment being loaded into a truck. Among the bodies, he saw one wearing shoes belonging to his wife. Putin claimed his father seized the body from the men and, realizing she was still alive, nursed her back to health. Eight years later, Putin was born.
“Obviously I have no way to verify Putin’s story,” Clinton later wrote, “but I’ve thought of it often. For me, it sheds some light on the man he had become and the country he governs. He’s always testing you, always pushing the boundaries.”
After Obama was re-elected to a second term, Clinton left the administration to prepare for what most suspected was a 2016 Presidential election bid. Putin nursed his grievances against her, waiting.
The next article will cover further complications in the Russian-American relationship, including the passage of the Magnitsky Act and the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, that set the stage for Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.