“...are they looking for some US authority to reason with, thinking Obama’s insane and beyond reason?”
They’re looking for rational adults to deal with, not a big-talking, small-walking, no-brained, dope-smoking, dog-eating, community-agitating petulant child narcissist with a Napoleonic Complex who thinks “leading from behind” is a virtue.
They know Obama is a punk and they want to try to reason with adults. Sadly, there are very few of those left in Congress.
Yeah, that’s another way of putting it.
It's such an unusual move, yours is the only explanation that makes sense to me. Still, given the character of Congress, there's really nowhere for these Russians to go for a dialogue.