Medvedev: Obama and I Must Work Together

Relations between the US and Russia were testy, to say the least, by the end of 2008—a condition for which Dmitry Medvedev, not surprisingly, blames Washington. In a needling op-ed for the Washington Post, the Russian president writes that the proposed missile defense system and support for Georgia and Ukraine's NATO bids "undermined Russia's interests." But Medvedev, who will meet Barack Obama for the first time in London tomorrow, has hope that the "toxic assets" of American policy can be cleaned up.

"Neither Russia nor the United States can tolerate drift and indifference in our relations," the president writes. He outlines areas for cooperation, from disarmament and Afghanistan to financial regulatory reform—though he also thinks the idea of a "world supranational reserve currency" to replace the dollar deserves consideration. Medvedev ends with warm words for Obama and the US, saying, "I firmly believe that at this turn of history, we should work together." (More Dmitry Medvedev stories.)