ANALYSIS

"It may be going too far to call the brief meeting a re-reset. But sending Mr. Kerry to Sochi (he will subsequently attend a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Turkey) suggests the Obama administration—despite its harsh words in the past for Putin—also sees some hope for re-engaging with Russia and working on issues ranging from Syria to North Korea and the terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State (IS)," writes Howard LaFranchi in Christian Science Monitor.

"Thanks both to Mr. Putin’s year of hubris and aggression, and to the long post-Soviet years of indecision, Russia’s future has transitioned from the best of possibilities to the worst. With its economy slumping, its elites trapped by Western sanctions, and its opportunities for foreign loans and access to new technology severely restricted, Mr. Putin has to struggle to implement his own brand of perestroika," writes Maxim Trudolyubov in the New York Times.

"Russia’s incursions into Ukraine and its seizure of Crimea violate two of China’s most consistently held foreign-policy tenets: non-interference in other states and separatism of any kind. But China abstained from voting on the UN Security Council resolutions condemning Russia, while Chinese media have given Russia strong support. China has quietly welcomed a new cold war in Europe that might distract America from its declared “rebalancing” towards Asia," writes the Economist.