Center for Citizen Initiatives

Bringing Russian and American citizens together in Peace since 1983.

We Launch RMMA with the Following Announcement

Russians Meet Mainstream Americans! (RMMA-pronounced Rama) will launch on March 20, 2018when a delegation of four enterprising Russians arrive at the Atlanta Airport! To answer the first question usually asked … No, they have nothing to do with the Russian government, except of course that they vote.

Lena Novomeiskaya from Yekaterinburg, Natasha Ivanova from Krasnodar in the south, Tatyana Bukharina from Yalta in Crimea and Elena Ivanova from St. Petersburg will travel to the U.S. as “citizen diplomats.” They come at the invitation of the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) to attend discussion groups (up to three a day) where they will answer questions, share ideas and seek solutions with counterpart American citizens. They will visit five U.S. areas: Atlanta, Dallas, Fort Worth, several cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington D.C. They will live in American homes, help cook meals, be transported in family cars and have hundreds of meetings in public forums, civic clubs, homes of volunteers, state official offices and offices of Congress members.

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CCI Moving Into Expanded Program Activity

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Due to rapidly escalating tensions in U.S.-Russia relations, CCI is restarting or increasing “bottom-up” diplomacy programs with the intention to trigger citizen awareness and response in both nations. Working with other experts and organizations, we may be able to have an impact far greater than we can now envision.

Two programs are now in motion:

• Americans travel to Russia on CCI’s “signature” trips which are investigative, not cultural. These trips will be expanded in 2018. They will go to Moscow and St. Petersburg to meet with experts and counterparts to understand how Russia is developing, surviving the sanctions and what they think about U.S.-Russia relations. From there, between the two capitals, small subgroups of Americans travel to as many as eight different Russian regions to spend days assessing how outlying Russians think, work, build businesses, deal with corruption and bureaucrats, see U.S.-Russia relations and more. The large group then convenes in St. Petersburg to share information and confer on how to generate solutions, deal with stereotypical thinking and develop public awareness.

• Bring Russian citizens to our U.S. cities to hold discussions across our country through Russians Meet Mainstream Americans! (RMMA).  See details in the next message. We ran this program in the 1980’s with terrific success. It dissolved decades of misinformation between our two nations and its peoples in two short years.

All the best,

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Four Senators Request Negotiations with Russia

Dear Friends,

An extremely significant event took place on Thursday, March 8.

Four senior Senators (Bernie Sanders, Dianne Feinstein, Jeff Merkley and Edward Markey) must have sweat blood over their decision to go against the grain of their colleagues and the backdrop of ever-present Neocons to request Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to jump start new Strategic Arms Talks with Russia.

This is HUGE, and no doubt, in response to Putin’s unveiling of Russia’s new class of weaponry. He says that these weapons will not be used unless Russia’s territory is hit first. So, are these new weapons defensive or offensive? Putin says defensive, which makes little difference at this point. He’s got them, which must make war profiteers shake in their boots about any notion of a ‘first strike.’

The request from the Senators must have caused a ‘chasm in the psyche’ of the powers behind U.S. leadership, such that it hasn’t even been mentioned in the mainstream media.

I just checked the Internet at 9 pm on the 10th, two full days later, and there is still NO MENTION of the urgent Senatorial request. It seems any trivial word about Mueller, Comey, Clapper, etc., gets rehearsed ad nauseam. Yet when top lawmakers of America make a sound request which could save the planet from nuclear war, the idea is verboten and not mentioned at all to the American people.

What does this mean to those of us who are citizens of this land? What is it about such negotiations that makes them off limits to even mention? What are we to draw from this – that negotiations are bad and war is good? God forbid … What have we come to?

All the best,

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Senator Ed Markey Press Release
March 8, 2018

Amid Heightened Tension, Markey, Merkley, Feinstein, and Sanders Press Trump Administration to Jumpstart New Strategic Talks with Russia

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Amid heightened tension with Russia, U.S. Senators Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) today urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to begin a new round of strategic talks with Russia without delay.

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The March 2018 Russian Presidential Election

Perspectives from Europe, the US, and Asia

March 7, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm, University of San Francisco, Fromm Hall, Room 111

Sharon Tennison, President of Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI), will discuss her time spent with Vladimir Putin in 1992 and her close watch of him since. She has numerous colleagues who worked with Putin which will give a window in on this inscrutable character. Since 1983 CCI has made major contributions to US-Russian relations among

them taking AA to the USSR, and training over 6,000 young Russian entrepreneurs in American companies, thus giving a boost to business development across the new Russia. Her slides will give a glimpse of Russia under Putin.

Filip Kovacevic is a professor of International Studies at USF, where he teaches courses on international relations, Eastern Europe, and other topics. A native of Montenegro, Prof. Kovacevic has written extensively about the geopolitics of the region and of

Russia in particular. He will discuss the implications of the March 18 presidential election for Russia and the world as a whole.

Event Flyer

New Russian Defensive Weapons System Announced

Dear CCI Friends,

Putin spoke for two hours today providing an outline of Russia’s future plans—mostly about Russia’s domestic economy. He also unexpectedly unveiled Russia’s new breakthrough in defensive nuclear weaponry.

If one studies history on a timeline basis, one understands that U.S./NATO actions have been responsible for each Russian reaction over the past two decades. In 1990, Russia readily opened itself up to the west expecting a friendly response after having rejected communism. Yeltsin and Putin both offered to join NATO hoping to be part of the west. Washington ignored, but promised not to expand NATO—but then did … saying expansion was not directed against Russia. Race forward past many other such events up to today. Presently, the U.S. and NATO conduct hostile exercises on Russia’s immediate borders while enacting tough economic sanctions on the whole of Russia. Current Washington leaders and mainstream media continuously demonize Putin and Russia … then last week, announced our new tactical nukes. What did we expect Russia to do?

These asymmetrical provocations have benefited some entities, but not Russia. A lot more money is flowing from taxpayers to the Pentagon and the Military Industrial Complex as a result. Does this make American citizens any safer? I think not, but it has forced Russia to prepare against a nuclear strike into its very heartland––which was announced today.

Why on earth did we miss so many opportunities to work cooperatively with Russia––

rather than face this state of affairs today?

All the best,

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Russia Insider
March 1, 2018

Putin’s Remarkable, Historic March 1 Speech in Moscow – Video Excerpts, Full Transcript, Moscow

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Citizens of Russia, members of the Federation Council and State Duma,

Today’s Address is a very special landmark event, just as the times we are living in, when the choices we make and every step we take are set to shape the future of our country for decades to come.

It is at such turning points that Russia has proven, time and again, its ability to develop and renew itself, discover new territories, build cities, conquer space and make major discoveries. This unwavering forward-looking drive, coupled with traditions and values, ensured the continuity in the thousand-year-long history of our nation.

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