Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel cannot get his Russian counterpart to take his calls, the Pentagon said Friday -- amid a new report that the Kremlin has suspended high-level talks with U.S. officials.Pentagon front man Col. Steve Warren told news hounds that Hagel is trying to speak with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, but the Russian Defense Ministry won't return his calls.
The Hagel snub comes one day after Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
took to the television podium in the State Department briefing room to rail against Russia for not complying with last week's Geneva agreement to pull back troops. Kerry threatened further economic sanctions, saying if Russia continues on this course it would amount to a "grave" and "expensive" mistake.
The Daily Beast also reported that, according to sources close to Russian leadership, the Kremlin has shut down high-level contact between top U.S. and Russian officials, for now. Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...have spoken several times over the course of the Ukraine crisis, the last being April 14. But tensions have again flared despite a diplomatic agreement struck last week.
This is not the first time Hagel's calls have been ignored. In February, it was the Ukrainian Defense minister who wouldn't pick up. At the time the Pentagon wanted to express concern about the violent crackdown on protesters by the then Moscow-aligned Ukrainian government.