The Media Mirror, 04.07.07. What's in today's Russian newspapers?

Today Russian newspapers spotlight Russian-American relations.

Vremya Novostei newspaper, writing of the new “game” of which President Putin spoke after “laying the cards on the table” at Walker Point, says that the game in question is none other than the New World Order – a notion born of Gorbachev's perestroika and close to the heart of President Bush senior. This time it was presented to him and his son in a re-engineered form by President Putin. Time turned backwards at Walker Point, says the paper:

“For a short while we returned to the bygone era of deep thought on the question of what are the U.S. and Russia for each other.”

The paper is not very optimistic about the future of this new “game” as both players have accumulated 15-years worth of disappointments in each other that might outweigh various positive developments.

Izvestia daily has these two beautiful pictures. It's hard to say, are the two leaders talking of fish, or of the vastness of the areas of co-operation and disagreement between the two countries.

In Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, TV host and editor of the Profile magazine Mikhail Leontiev speaks of the uneasy friendship of the two presidents and the two nations. He has no doubts about the anti-Russian targeting of the U.S. missile defense system, as no other country but Russia possesses a nuclear capability matching that of the U.S. and hails the latest proposals of the Russian side as new ideas that, if accepted by the U.S., can make a real difference in bilateral relations of the two biggest nuclear powers of the world.

Vremya Novostei on another page from the previously quoted celebrates July 4 with an interview with former U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security, Tom Ridge. A true believer in the messianic role of his country, he justifies the military involvement of the U.S. in Vietnam in the past and in Iraq in the present, noting that Americans have been building and defending democracies all over the world, namely in Japan, South Korea, Germany.

“We never apologise for our efforts in promoting democracy,” he says.

Mr Ridge also reminded Russian readers that in pursuit of democracy “together with the allies America fought against Nazism. By the way, it was Russia who helped us defeat Nazism.”

With all due respect, the last phrase could be seen as the understatement of the century.