TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, December 17, 2010 — The START treaty must be very good for Russia if Prime Minister Putin felt it necessary to disavow a reported statement given earlier to the media by an unitentified Kremlin official who suggested that an assassin or assassins may have been dispatched to the U.S. to kill a former Russian spy suspected of betraying a group of sleeper Russian agents. The earlier story, although not reported widely by mainstream U.S.media, was not good public relations and public diplomacy since it implied the Kremlin’s intention to violate U.S. laws on American soil. He may have been advised to issue a denial to help win the approval for the START treaty in the U.S. Senate.