Check out Dmitriy Medvedev’s response to a question on whether the timing of his “state of the nation speech”:http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/11/05/2144_type70029type82917type127286_208836.shtml so close to the U.S. election was “coincidental”:

bq. MEDVEDEV: Do you think this is blackmail? This is not just a coincidence, I can disclose to you the inside workings of this. Two times I postponed my state-of-the-nation address because I was not happy with the documents that had been prepared for me, and at some time I simply had to sit down at the table and edit the text of that state-of-the-nation address. And the date I chose was November 5. *With all my respect to the United States, I absolutely forgot about the important political event that had to take place that day. There is nothing personal here.*

Ok. Maybe he didn’t quite _forget_. But this just goes to say that not all events in the world necessarily revolve around U.S. elections. Thus, they shouldn’t be “interpreted”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2083/medvedevs-welcome-to-obama as such.

Full transcript of Medvedev’s “CFR talk is here”:http://www.cfr.org/publication/17775/conversation_with_dmitry_medvedev.html.

*Update*: In a story that starts with Medvedev’s comment about lack of trust in U.S.-Russian relations (from aforementioned CFR talk), WaPo ran a pic of “Medvedev pouting”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/15/AR2008111502528.html. Sheesh.