--------- http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/01/09MOSCOW226.html
"Ambassador plans to raise all of those incidents forcefully in high-level meetings next week to send a message back flagging the risks inherent in allowing rogue elements to run amok in the relationship." ---------
Most of the incidents involve domestic Russian political affairs. This isn't to say Russia doesn't have plenty of shady government officials -- what country doesn't? -- but the openly imperial arrogance of the cable is mind-boggling. Nothing about Russia's culture, business opportunities, or growing markets, just paranoid mutterings about spies and siloviki. Replace the word "Putin" with "Gandhi" and "siloviki" with "Congress Party", and you'd have an exact replica of the diplomatic chitchat of the British governors-general during the colonial days of the Raj. SSDE, to paraphrase a saying -- same s*$%, different empire.
-- DRR