“…In his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama bragged that his administration led the international effort to isolate Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. More recently, however, Ukraine has largely disappeared from the U.S.-Russian agenda.

…President Obama told New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman last month that ‘Russia was a help’ on the Iran nuclear deal. ‘I was not sure given the strong differences we are having with Russia right now around Ukraine, whether this would sustain itself. Putin and the Russian government compartmentalized on this in a way that surprised me, and we would have not achieved this agreement had it not been for Russia’s willingness to stick with us and the other P5-Plus members in insisting on a strong deal.’ …

“U.S. sanctions against Russia over its aggression toward Ukraine remain in place, but the Obama administration’s isolation of the Putin regime has ended. With Russian violations of the February ceasefire on the rise and Ukrainian casualties mounting, Ukrainians fear they are being sacrificed in the pursuit of broader U.S.-Russian cooperation. By pretending to play a constructive role in the Middle East, Mr. Putin shifts attention away from the havoc he is wreaking in Ukraine. The question is how long it will take U.S. officials to see this.”

– David J. Kramer, senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute in Washington, writing in The Wall Street Journal blog “Washington Wire” on August 12 (see http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/08/12/is-russias-outreach-on-syria-a-bid-to-distract-from-ukraine/).