How Much Worse?

I hesitate to put down my thoughts. Because every time I express the idea that US-Russian relations could not get any worse, they do.

The escalating rounds of diplomat expulsions this summer ensured not only that tensions between the US and Russia would increase, but also that we would have fewer mediators to deal with those tensions as they arise. Smart.

Of course, the tensions we read about in the press have little effect on what one meets on the ground when visiting Russia, as I witnessed during our extensive travels in August for our Children of 1917 project. We were received with fantastic hospitality and only the warmest of feelings. Average Russians, like their American (or British or German, etc.) counterparts, are able to separate the people from their leaders, the policy from the polity.