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What may make climate change agreements attractive to states? Russia's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is one that could potentially constrain its economic development. I argue that the international relations literature on climate change agreements can be best advanced with the inclusion of models from comparative politics. This argument is carried out through an analysis of Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. I employ a combined two-level game theoretical framework to rediscover Kyoto ratification and explain why it became both rationally sound and politically possible in Russia. At the domestic level, it appears that Putin made ratification politically possible through the elimination of what are called veto-players with the potential to block Kyoto. At the international level, ratification will be shown to be logically sound through a discussion of nested games. Russia, at the time of ratification, was engaged in multiple games at both domestic and international levels. Although Russia appeared to choose suboptimally, its decision becomes optimal when one analyzes the whole network of games with which it was engaged. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]