Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Obama Snubs, Russia Laughs, Putin Wins

Obama has made a bit of a fool of himself in his effort to snub Putin for harboring fugitive Edward Snowden.

August 7, 2013 at 4:53 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

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In the U.S., President Barack Obama's decision to cancel a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin for harboring fugitive Edward Snowden is seen as an important diplomatic demarche.

From the Russian perspective, it's a bit of a joke.