Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program, was quoted by the Washington Times, "Bush Meetin

President Bush went into a meeting this morning with former U.S. and Soviet officials this morning, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Soviet Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. . .

Sarah Mendelson, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the group is a way for Mr. Putin to maintain contact with the Bush administration while continuing to close off contact with the U.S. inside his country.

"Putin wants a funnel system where he has contact with a very few senior folks repeatedly and that's where he’s getting his idea of what policy is going to be, and then he wants to cut off contact for everybody else," Ms. Mendelson said.

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