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On Thursday, Ketchum scored another public-relations coup: It helped place a Putin commentary in opinion pages of The New York Times, just as representatives from Russia and the United States were beginning to meet in Geneva to negotiate a plan for Syria to give up its chemical weapons.
The article made quite a splash in Washington. Putin painted himself as a peacemaker and lectured the United States for what he said was a tendency to use "brute force" in world disputes. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said he was "insulted" by the article, while the White House noted that Putin was taking advantage of press freedoms unavailable in Russia.
Ketchum, a division of the Omnicom Group Inc., has earned more than $25 million working for Russia, according to documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. It also has been paid more than $26 million since 2007 to promote Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas company....
I liked the point about the Russian Prime Minister not being able to utilize the same freedom of the press in his home country.