Max Mahajan, Yes, the big issue with Russia from a US perspective, is not that rich people have influence, it is that they are not the right rich peple for the US. Meaning that there would be no coplaints if US puppets had the controlling influence themselves in Russia, which was becoming the case in the 1990s. The US wall street cronies are Oligarchs controling the US. But these are OK! and they would continue to be OK, from a US administration (cronies) perspective if they not only placed US ctizens into servitude, but also Russians and the rest of the world as well. So for me the only relevence of the content is to show that the whole US diplomatic process is at best a low calibre operation, or worse a complete den of vipers, lying to further their own financial and career ends. This if limited to the US would not be so much of a problem, however, when it leads to illegal invasions, torture and rape by the US and its cohorts, then it is a problem the world at large needs to address. That process of addressing the US diplomatic deficit needs to start immediately with a refusal to trust any information presented by the US unless backed up by direct verifiable physical evidence. Otherwise the US is likely to endanger the world with other Holywood created fantacy films that quickly turn into a nightmare with actual peoples lives lost and destroyed.

Bogdanov, Bianca, Absolutel y! what we see here is a creation of 'reality' to support a geopolitical position and agenda. That position is partly a hegemonic aspiration, and partly a pure financial position, to earn revenue for some, by maintaining the cold war model and MIC. Basically the diplomatic mission is like a poor marketing team with an overbearing boss. They can't access the real data, so they make something up that fits in with the general tune the boss wants to hear. This makes it easy work for them, as simple to do, just write a memo, and keeps them onside with their bosses. The problem comes when either the story gets out, allowing it to be seen as so far out of touch with reality as to be farcical and irrelevent, or worse as in the WMD fabrication, it becomes acted on before its nest of lies becomes apparent. The problem is that the diplomatic paycheck has to be earned every month regardless, so output has to be seen, regardless that this individual career and financial sub-optimisation has enormous negative effects on even the US in the long term. The case is, that the diplomats effectively for their own personal gain, act against the interests of the US - Now what is another word for that?

Well, at least they detailed something on the Russian gov't. It's a step, its important for the Russian Federation to recognize that its better to be loved than feared. And there is always a difference between the needs of the nation and the needs of the state.