Clinton seen going toe-to-toe with Putin if she wins November election

WASHINGTON – 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. With U.S. relations with Moscow already plumbing post-Cold War lows, the aides and veteran Russia watchers said she will likely take a harder line than Obama or Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has praised Putin as a strong leader. Dealing with Putin, who is flexing his geopolitical muscle from Ukraine to Syria to cyberspace, will be among Clinton's biggest foreign policy challenges -- one made more daunting by the personal bad blood between them.