Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed the reset button on his decision to allow the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist pro-democracy organizations in his country.
“The United States recently received the Russian Government’s decision to end USAID activities in the Russian Federation,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. “While USAID’s physical presence in Russia will come to an end, we remain committed to supporting democracy, human rights, and the development of a more robust civil society in Russia and look forward to continuing our cooperation with Russian non-governmental organizations.”
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Putin and the State Department have had an uneasy relationship over the last year-and-a-half. Part of the tension results from the elections that brought him back to the presidency, which are widely-regarded as having been manipulated to ensure his victory. When protests erupted in Russia, Putin blamed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As CNN reported on in December:
Clinton replied by whacking Putin for human rights violations because of his crackdown on critics of the election. “The right to express one’s views, practice one’s faith, peacefully assemble with others to pursue political or social change,” she declared during a speech at The Hague on internet freedom, “these are all rights to which all human beings are entitled whether they choose to exercise them in a city square or an internet chat room.”
Observers believe USAID is now being rejected due to such criticism of Putin’s election. “They see AID’s efforts in Russia as being a prime funder of the NGOs that are concerned about their elections and concerned about the regression of democracy in Russia,” former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer told Reuters.
When Clinton visited Russia in 2009, she offered Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a toy “reset button,” which she explained “represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: ‘We want to reset our relationship, and so we will do it together.’”
