Dmitri Simes Strikes a Different Note on Putin

In the midst of the strident campaign of vilification of Vladimir Putin in Washington—and other Western capitals—a speech by Russian-born thinktanker Dimitri Simes, president of the Center for the National Interest, in the U.S. capital this week is a notable exception.

Simes, a foreign policy analyst whose career has included working for Richard Nixon in his post-presidential years, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Johns Hopkins University, spoke at the National Interest center on the subject of “The Crisis in U.S.-Russian Relations.” The event was chaired by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Simes has recently visited Russia and held high-level meetings, including with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

According to the write-up on the National Interest website, Simes presented President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov as the “pragmatists,” who are

Simes advocated a pull-back on sanctions, which he said feeds the hardliners’ story, and called for the U.S. to understand that Putin has limited goals. The alternative could lead to an alignment which would “set the stage for a great conflagration.”