Some perspective on Russia

On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism, hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American journalist and broadcaster.

Pozner spoke on the impact of US foreign policy towards Russia after the Soviet Union has been disbanded, and shared his opinions on a range of issues raised by the audience, from the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, to Skripal poisoning, to the state of independent media in Russia and the US. 
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I listened to this entire video last night. I've seen Pozner on American TV over many years.  I don't always agree with every one of his comments but in general I think he is correct that the US has made Putin into the 'bad guy' because the Russian leader dared to stand up to the west as he defended Russian national sovereignty. 

I also found Pozner's concluding answer to the Skripal 'poisoning' question to be quite interesting although he made a joke out of his own wondering if it wasn't the British intelligence agencies that had poisoned the former spy in order to give Putin a black eye.  I think Pozner was correct when he commented that Russia had nothing to gain (and everything to lose) by poisoning Skripal.  I've always believed it was a British-US cloak and dagger operation.  It is their modus operandi for sure.

Bruce