Is here.

It is better than his Cairo speech which had rather too many philosophically incoherent passages.

This one is easier to make, of course, as he is aiming it at one country in particular and not at an amorphous ‘Muslim world’. So the key messages can be more finely honed and better aimed.

Let’s put to one side his rather feeble explanation for why the Cold War ended:

… make no mistake: This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful.

Or the fact that he praised Soviet heroism in WW2 but alas in this anniversary year ducked mentioning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which started it.

President Obama gave the audience of young Russians a strong sense of a new hand of friendly partnership, while steering close to mainstream US positions as President Bush might have done.

On the key issue of missile defence in Europe, Obama deftly linked the issue to shared progress elsewhere:

I know Russia opposes the planned configuration for missile defense in Europe. And my administration is reviewing these plans to enhance the security of America, Europe and the world. And I’ve made it clear that this system is directed at preventing a potential attack from Iran. It has nothing to do with Russia.

In fact, I want to work together with Russia on a missile defense architecture that makes us all safer. But if the threat from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program is eliminated, the driving force for missile defense in Europe will be eliminated, and that is in our mutual interests.

Message: Help us (I mean really help us) on Iran and we can see what we can do to scale back this missile deployment you dislike. Over to you, Russia.

See also this not too oblique criticism of Russian corruption:

… the greatest resource of any nation in the 21st century is you. It’s people; it’s young people especially. And the country which taps that resource will be the country that will succeed. That success depends upon economies that function within the rule of law.

As President Medvedev has rightly said, a mature and effective legal system is a condition for sustained economic development. People everywhere should have the right to do business or get an education without paying a bribe. Whether they are in America or Russia or Africa or Latin America, that’s not a American idea or a Russian idea — that’s how people and countries will succeed in the 21st century.

The passages on democracy and why it works are good, until the odd Honduras bit at the end:

America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country. And we haven’t always done what we should have on that front.

Even as we meet here today, America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies. We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not.

Not exactly the point at issue in Honduras?

On the Russian view of its ‘near abroad’, Obama says that just as Russia has its sovereign rights so do the other new states:

State sovereignty must be a cornerstone of international order. Just as all states should have the right to choose their leaders, states must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies. That is true for Russia, just as it is true for the United States. Any system that cedes those rights will lead to anarchy.

That’s why we must apply this principle to all nations — and that includes nations like Georgia and Ukraine. America will never impose a security arrangement on another country. For any country to become a member of an organization like NATO, for example, a majority of its people must choose to; they must undertake reforms; they must be able to contribute to the Alliance’s mission. And let me be clear: NATO should be seeking collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.

Well, OK. But what about the Russian move to hive off parts of Georgia last year? How to reconcile that event with this earlier passage about the NPT? Thus:

If we fail to stand together, then the NPT and the Security Council will lose credibility, and international law will give way to the law of the jungle. And that benefits no one. As I said in Prague, rules must be binding, violations must be punished, and words must mean something.

No sign that Russia is being ‘punished’ at all for that Georgia lunge?

And so on.

This speech and the visit as a whole represent an energetic new Obama administration effort to persuade the Russians to work nicely with the USA and not cause problems.

The nuclear arms reductions agreed during the visit make a great headline but little if any practical difference, as they will take place at a very leisurely rate.

The problem lies elsewhere, namely in the fact that Russia’s idea of partnership with the USA involves a far higher degree of operational cooperation and closeness than Washington can or wants to concede to a country whose incessant almost inherent awkwardness is not offset by any special economic weight outside the energy area.

Hence if Russia can not be in practice a real partner for the USA, it seeks its global political market niche in behaving awkwardly towards US policies at the UN and elsewhere, as this at least marks out some sort of continuing Big Power status even if in a negative way.

In practice it is simple. Will Russia start to work more closely with the USA to squeeze N Korea and Iran and some other dodgy places as only the Russians know how? Or not?

On past experience, a bit more cooperation openly and covertly will happen for a while.

Moscow will expect Washington to be effusively grateful. Washington will think that Moscow has only scratched the surface of what it might do if it set its mind to it.

Moscow will not give up trying to influence things across the CIS. Washington will see this as clumsy anti-democratic Russian post-imperial power-plays.

And it will all fray again.