According to a recent analysis from the Los Angeles Times, President Obama’s visit to Russia has been a lot less mild than the American media would have us believe.

While outlets like Newsweek conclude that not much came of such engagements as meetings with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the LAT’s Megan Stack reports that the president’s recent speech contained some sharp criticisms of various Russian programs.

Some excerpts:

If you don’t want radar and interceptors near your border, Obama tells the Russians, you’d better get a lot more helpful with Iran. Moscow could wield decisive influence in nuclear talks with Tehran, but instead has opted for a cozy relationship and lucrative business deals, including the construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran. Some Moscow insiders say the Kremlin doesn’t take Iranian weapons seriously. After all, they say, the nukes won’t be pointed at us.

Apparently, overall the president is “trying to be gentle by discussing America instead of directly bashing Russia, but many Russians will cringe at the comparison.” Furthermore, it seems that the Russian view is that the United States is being hypocritical, if we take Stack’s word. Another example:

Obama is reprimanding Moscow on several points: for its war last year with Georgia; for insisting that Georgia’s breakaway republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, are independent nations; and for interfering in Ukrainian politics … The mental response would go like this: Where was your interest in state sovereignty when you recognized the independence of Kosovo from Serbia last year? And how can you lecture us about secure borders after invading Iraq and Afghanistan, and while you are still occupying those lands?

So, even as it seemed that the Russo-American Nuclear Agreement was a great step forward, the overall truth of the president’s visit may not be so simple.

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