NEWSWATCH: “Twenty years ago, Russians loved the US. Where did it all go wrong? In the immediate post-Soviet era, Russians held the US in high esteem. But that started to change amid economic woes and Western adventurism in the Balkans and Middle East.” – Christian Science Monitor/Fred Weir

“… Time magazine’s July 15, 1996, cover. … depicts Russian President Boris Yeltsin, recently reelected … grinning and clutching an American flag under the headline ‘Yanks to the Rescue!’ The story tells of a group of high-powered US political consultants who were secretly brought to Russia amid the hard-fought presidential elections of 1996, in which a beleaguered Mr. Yeltsin was trying to battle his way back from single-digit public approval ratings to defeat a Communist challenger. … They coached Yeltsin’s people in the tactics and technologies of modern political campaigning, and helped to secure his ultimate victory. … few in the US at the time seemed to doubt that American involvement in the struggle for Russia’s highest office was basically a good thing. Even Russians didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, a tracking poll regularly conducted by the independent Levada Center in Moscow reported that a whopping 72 percent of Russians had a ‘positive’ attitude toward the US just a year later ….”

Click here for Christian Science Monitor/Fred Weir: “Twenty years ago, Russians loved the US. Where did it all go wrong? In the immediate post-Soviet era, Russians held the US in high esteem. But that started to change amid economic woes and Western adventurism in the Balkans and Middle East.”