When Hillary Clinton attended her first major White House meeting on Russia in February 2009, the new secretary of state insisted that she wanted to play a leading role in President Barack Obama's effort to "reset" U.S. relations with Moscow.
But while Clinton became implementer-in-chief for one of Obama's signature first-term initiatives, she was consistently more skeptical than most of his top aides about how far Russian leader Vladimir Putin was prepared to go in turning the page, according to current and former U.S. officials.
That stance is indicative of how she will go about dealing with Moscow if she is elected U.S. president on Nov. 8, aides to both Clinton and Obama said.