*Moscow: *The latest attempt at Russian-American rapprochement came in theguise of a shirtless U.S. ambassador.
Wearing black swimming trunks, U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman on Sundayplunged into the icy waters of the Istra River outside Moscow, as Russianjournalists’ cameras rolled. The former Utah governor was trying out anOrthodox tradition for the Epiphany holiday, commemorating the baptism ofJesus in the Jordan River. His frigid dip had a geopolitical air to it:Huntsman was following Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did his ownshirtless Epiphany photo op on Friday.
“This allows us to better get to know Russia’s great culture from theinside,” Huntsman told a Russian television reporter afterward, accordingto the TV translation of his remarks. Huntsman, the reporter added, “isconfident that this cold tradition can help move Russian-American relationsin a warm direction.”
Thus the United States got a moment of good press at a time when thelooming congressional sanctions seem set to drive U.S.-Russian relations tonew lows. A photograph of the shirtless Huntsman emerging from the riverled the website of the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. TV channel 360said the ambassador showed “Russian courage and English gallantry.”
Huntsman’s courage did not, however, seem to make much of an impression onone of the Kremlin’s main propagandists, television host Dmitry Kiselyov.His weekly show Sunday night featured a segment slamming The WashingtonPost for “fake news” on Russia’s role in the U.S. election; another on anunkept U.S. promise not to expand NATO to the east; and a third claimingAmerican athletes were getting away with doping. U.S. diplomacy, Kiselyovtold viewers, is “dishonest – even treacherous.” – Washington Post