Among those in attendance at President Obama’s “Countering Extremist Violence” Conference this week is none other than the chief of Russia’s Federal Security Service– a.k.a. the modern day KGB; Aleksandr Bortnikov.
The New York Times reports that the visit, which the paper describes “unusual under the best of circumstances,” was confirmed on Tuesday night.
Bortnikov is one of many senior Russian officials that have been hit with “targeted sanctions” by the European Union and the United States in response to Russia’s invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula last March and Russia’s continued support of pro-Russian separatists seeking to sunder large portions of eastern Ukraine.
President Obama repeatedly asserts that his response to Russian aggression has succeeded in isolating Russia from the international community.
Just last month, the leaders of France and Germany traveled together again to Moscow to plead with Russian President Putin to stop his invasion of Ukraine. What or how precisely Russia has been isolated is difficult to determine.